Palin Email Snoop Found Guilty On 2 Charges

netbuzz writes "A federal jury in Knoxville today has convicted David Kernell, 22, of two charges — misdemeanor computer fraud and felony obstruction of justice — in connection with the 2008 episode where he accessed the personal Yahoo email account of Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin and then initiated a worldwide rummaging of its contents. The obstruction charge carries a maximum prison term of 20 years."

Comments

Jury also hung on one count

[random coward]

They also hung on the count of Identity Theft; The DA can retry that later if he so chooses.

Re:Jury also hung on one count

[flaming error]

Identity theft? I'm not sure how much it would bother me if Sarah Palin really did lose her identity.

Re:Jury also hung on one count

[Anonymous Coward]

She doesn't have an identity. Rush Limbaugh's talking points do not an identity create.

Re:Jury also hung on one count

[Anonymous Coward]

Identity theft? I'm not sure how much it would bother me if Sarah Palin really did lose her identity.

That's really petty.

Re:Jury also hung on one count

[Locke2005]

Identity theft? I think they need to bring Tina Fey up on that charge!

Re:Jury also hung on one count

[davidbrit2]

"Who would want it? The defense rests."

Re:Jury also hung on one count

[Anonymous Coward]

Damn, Rush can see the Russians from his porch too? There must be Russians all over the damn place! How many animals has Rush shot from a helicopter?

Re:Jury also hung on one count

[Anonymous Coward]

Tina Fey said that line, dummy, not Sarah Palin.

Re:Jury also hung on one count

[GameMaster]

Yes, Palin only said that you could see Russia from Alaska, which is only a hair less idiotic when you consider that she was trying to claim that as a reason for why she has experience in international politics. Most people don't differentiate because both comments are so idiotic that there isn't a difference worth caring about.

Re:Jury also hung on one count

[OeLeWaPpErKe]

Everyone makes mistakes ... how many states are there again ?

Unless of course he was telling a future truth ... and this is perhaps how he wanted to accomplish that.

And frankly, in case anyone missed it ... Obama is a lawyer. A lawyer who went into politics. With all that goes with it. You'd think slashdot would support the candidate that cares about issues they'd consider important (not that I have too many illusions about McCain being different, but hey if there's a choice between someone in big content's bed versus someone merely flirting with them, I know what to choose. At least the next set of shitty laws would take longer in coming. Besides democrats voted in the dmca, if anyone's going to vote it back out it'll be the other party).

Re:Jury also hung on one count

[hardwarefreak]

Yes, Palin only said that you could see Russia from Alaska, which is only a hair less idiotic when you consider that she was trying to claim that as a reason for why she has experience in international politics. Most people don't differentiate because both comments are so idiotic that there isn't a difference worth caring about.

Well, this proves the first statement is not idiotic, as you put it, but is factual.

From: http://www.gov.state.ak.us/trade/2003/tad/russia/facts.htm

"At their closest Alaska and Russia are 2.5 miles apart – the distance between Little Diomede Island, Alaska, and Big Diomede Island, Russia. The two islands straddle the U.S.-Russian maritime border in the middle of the Bering Strait. In mid-winter, when the Bering Strait freezes, it is possible to walk between the two islands – from American to Russia, from today to tomorrow, or from Russia to the United States, from today to yesterday. It is even possible to stand on the frozen Bering Strait, with one foot in America and one foot in Russia, straddling the frontiers of distant boundaries and time travel."

If you don't get the part about "today to tomorrow" and vice versa, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Date_Line

"In the north, the date line swings to the east through the Bering Strait, and then west past the Aleutian Islands to keep Alaska (part of the United States) and Russia, which are due north and south of each other in that region, on opposite sides of the line and in agreement with the date in the rest of those countries. As a result of this line-adjusting, the right to call itself "The Last Place on Earth" (that is, the latest place) goes to the westernmost Aleutian Island of Attu.

The date line passes equidistantly between the two Diomede Islands—Little Diomede Island (US) and Big Diomede Island (Russia)—at a distance of 1.5 km (1 mi) from each island."

Palin's foreign policy experience remark regarding the proximity of Russia was a humorous rebuttal and counterattack on Obama's lack of foreign policy experience. Neither of them had any. Palin was saying, humorously, that she has slightly more foreign policy experience than Obama because Russia is right next door to Alaska. This remark was twisted by the liberal mainstream media, as usual, to make a Republican candidate look bad. If you have seen the video of that rally, it is abundantly clear she was poking fun at the opposition, _not_ making a serious statement about her foreign affairs experience.

Re:Jury also hung on one count

[Bartab]

Palin only said that you could see Russia from Alaska

"They're our next door neighbors and you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska." The actual quote, and an actual fact.

she was trying to claim that as a reason for why she has experience in international politics

In context, that is not her claim. However, it should be noted that Palin engaged in international treaty negotiations, as a representative of the United States as well as Alaska, with Canada. The topic was a natural gas pipeline. In the 2008 Presidential elections, she was the only one of the four Presidential or Vice Presidential candidates with international negotiation experience.

Re:Jury also hung on one count

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

GIBSON: What insight into Russian actions, particularly in the last couple of weeks, does the proximity of the state give you?

PALIN: They're our next door neighbors and you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska, from an island in Alaska.

Sounds like a very straightforward not-answering-the-question response deserving of ridicule.

Re:Jury also hung on one count

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like a very straightforward not-answering-the-question response deserving of ridicule.

LOL. Yeah, lets see how you respond to people ridiculing Obama every time he gives a non-answer. That fool gets in front of the cameras and blames Bush for the huge deficit when he's spent more money than all Presidents from Washington through Bush, combined, and is still wanting to spend more. Talk about a blatant fool and liar.

Remember that promise of no new taxes on anyone making less than $2OO,OOO a year? Just watch. You'll soon be paying a value added tax on everything you buy. It's not only a tax increase, but a brand new tax never before known in the US as well. Thanks for lying Obama. Thanks for spending our nation into oblivion.

His big show over Goldman Sachs? Why isn't he condemning Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae? They were the ones who really blew up the economy. The federal government has unfunded liabilities originating from them that equaled $5 trillion in 2008, but they aren't even mentioned in the deficit. Why isn't he blaming the real instigators of the mortgage crisis? Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac did far more bundling of shaky mortgages than Goldman Sachs ever thought of. They started the practice. So, why aren't the real culprits the target of criminal probes?

Why doesn't he mention his own role in pushing banks to lend money to people they knew couldn't repay the loans? Why isn't he after ACORN for doing the same? They used to basically blackmail banks into making bad loans. ACORN would tell them that until they started making loans to the people ACORN brought to the banks who didn't have the money to pay off the mortgages ACORN would be outside their doors protesting and putting political pressure on them.

Now, why doesn't this corrupt President do all these things? Why isn't he being truthful? Why is he being so dishonest? He's worthy of ridicule.

Re:Jury also hung on one count

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you always believe everything you read/hear from any/every source out there, or just the sources that agree with you? I can't figure out which...

Re:Jury also hung on one count

[Anonymous Coward]

"Everyone makes mistakes"

The criticism of her comment regarding Russia wasn't that it was "a mistake"; what on earth are you babbling about?

Re:Jury also hung on one count

[bkpark]

Identity theft? I think they need to bring Tina Fey up on that charge!

The only question is, who'll be charged for what: Tina Fey, for impersonating Sarah Palin; or Sarah Palin, for impersonating Tina Fey.

Re:Jury also hung on one count

[Grym]

Palin's foreign policy experience remark regarding the proximity of Russia was a humorous rebuttal and counterattack on Obama's lack of foreign policy experience. Neither of them had any. Palin was saying, humorously, that she has slightly more foreign policy experience than Obama because Russia is right next door to Alaska. This remark was twisted by the liberal mainstream media, as usual, to make a Republican candidate look bad. If you have seen the video of that rally, it is abundantly clear she was poking fun at the opposition, _not_ making a serious statement about her foreign affairs experienc

If you really thought it were a joke, why did you feel the need to first validate her claim that Russia and Alaska are within visual distance? If it was just a joke, such a detail wouldn't matter... right?

Here's a video of Palin explaining her remark. She seems serious to me. Interestingly, she even expressed disappointment that her comment was "mocked" by the press. Was she just joking then too?

Regardless, how do you explain the rest of the interview or the rest of the campaign? Was she just role-playing an idiot that whole time?

-Grym

Re:Jury also hung on one count

[Meski]

Sarah who? Is she a sister to Michael Palin, well-known Monty Python?

Re:Jury also hung on one count

[Creepy]

Yep, and which is worse, a Republican that jacks up the debt 18%, or a Democrat that quadruples it and promises that it will be half that by the time he exits office (which still means he doubled it)? I'm not fond of credit card spending, so I have a real problem when the government does it for me.

My other problem with the Democrats and Republicans is they tend to hit extremes because the primaries cater to the extremists, so middle-of-the-roaders tend to end up with very liberal and very conservative choices and they disagree with both.

My personal beliefs are probably closest to the Modern Whig party. It is by far the most pragmatic party I know of, and they don't have what I consider "showstopper" issues like the libertarians belief in going back to a commodity (gold) standard. I like the idea that stuff like abortion, gay marriage, etc are relegated to the state level - the United States is too large to have a unified opinion on these issues, so they should be decided state-to-state. I hope that applies to drug use laws, as well, because I don't think the federal government should have any control on whether California allows Marijuana for any use (illness or recreation). My state bans it for all use, and that is and should be the choice of my state.

Why is this different?

[Halborr]

My question is: Why is going through someone else's email different than going through their regular mail? What makes the addition of a computer so special?

Re:Why is this different?

[Archangel Michael]

One is a felony Mail tampering, one is computer tampering. Email is not considered the same as regular Mail.

And while my mailbox has a lock on it, it is simple and easy to bypass, I'd hate to see people make the same excuses for someone lifting mail from my box as they do for people lifting email from Hotmail (or whatever).

Re:Why is this different?

[socz]

You can't guess the key to the lock as you can a password?*

If anything S.P. should be footing the bill for all the proceedings simply because she used such easy/obvious answers that it was inevitable to happen. It's like saying someone stole my Porsche Carrera when I left the windows down in front of my house. sure, they were down but I only ran in for a bit. That sort of negligence is inviting to 'criminals' (or joy riders!).

Here's another example: 2 kids playing with a loaded hand gun. Is owner of gun at fault when one kills the other? Sue the dad? No! Sue the gun company for allowing the gun to be shot by kids (enter the gun lock controls).

Even though I jest with serious subjects, you can't always blame the dog for jumping on the chair and eating your food. Sometimes you should just know better.

* And yes you can pick a lock, but that requires skill, something that doesn't require skill is http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&q=sarah+palin&aq=f&aqi=g10&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=

Re:Why is this different?

[alvinrod]

It's not necessarily special to me; however, I see that you've listed your email address which makes it incredibly easy for me, a person with no other information about you, to invade your privacy. Going through your regular mail requires physical access to it. I can try getting at your email from almost anywhere on the planet, or probably even off of it. In that case, there may be some question about the precedence of local laws and such. Which state laws apply? The state of the accused, the state where the servers reside, or something else?

The only other difference I can think of off of the top of my head is that committing computer crimes may also include limitations to the offenders usage of a computer in the future to prevent them from being able to commit the crime again. This is probably reserved for more severe cases, but it's something. Someone more well versed in computer law would probably have a better answer.

Re:Why is this different?

[Vinegar Joe]

If anything S.P. should be footing the bill for all the proceedings simply because she used such easy/obvious answers that it was inevitable to happen.

I wonder what the bill was for the investigation of Obama's Twiiter hacking investigation. Think he'll be the one paying?

"A French computer hacker was facing prison today after breaking into the Twitter accounts of Barack Obama and Britney Spears by ‘guessing’ their passwords.
In the U.S. president's case the key word is said to have included the name of his beloved dog, Bo.
Agents spent six months on his trail after he managed to gain access to Mr Obama’s Twitter account - a micro-blogging site which the president frequently uses to communicate with voters."

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1260488/Barack-Obamas-Twitter-password-revealed-French-hacker-arrested.html

Re:Why is this different?

[MaggieL]

Ah, so it's OK to steal stuff you regard as inadequately secured.

The dog gets forgiveness, the human should get prison. In your Porche hypothetical, the thief would still go down for GTA.

"Sorry about turning off your respirator, but that should have been keylocked, you know...I couldn't resist."

 

Re:Why is this different?

[zero_out]

The USPS is an agency of the US government, while email is just an agreed upon standard and service provided by private entities. Snail mail is handled by USPS (government) employees from the the time the sender gives it to the USPS, until the USPS gives it to the recipient. Email is handled by multiple servers, routing packets from one point to another, which are (almost entirely) owned by private entities.

In the case of international snail mail, the laws that apply to the USPS only apply while it is within their control. Once it's handed off to the postal service of another country, it's out of US jurisdiction.

I may be mistaken, but I think that other postal companies, like UPS and FedEx don't fall under the same set of laws as the USPS. So in theory, mail fraud wouldn't apply to something sent via UPS. Then again IANAL, so this part is just an educated guess.

Re:Why is this different?

[cowscows]

Why bother picking a lock when there's so many other easier ways to get into the average house? Breaking a window is trivial, drilling out a lock isn't hard, etc. To someone even mildly determined to get in, the average house lock is less of a issue than a weak password is for an email account.

While it's certainly smarter to have a strong password than a weak one, to say that having a weak password should mean that you take on some of the legal responsibility for a crime committed against you by someone else is ridiculous.

Re:Why is this different?

[Anonymous Coward]

You know, fuck you.

A criminal is someone that takes your stuff. It doesn't matter if you locked it down or not. They take it == crime. What kind of fucked up word is this now that if you don't lock it down enough, then it's free for all?? No wander companies are turning to DRM - your mindset is what is causing it.

PS. You can pick any lock with a drill. Enough said.

Re:Why is this different?

[geekoid]

no, it has a password, clearly she doesn't want anyone unauthorized going into her email. The quality of the password, or the size of the lock doesn't matter.

Pick A lock? I'll just go through the window, thank you very much.

Re:Why is this different?

[geekoid]

". Think he'll be the one paying?"
I certainly hope not. I also don't the SP should pay..or ANY victim or any crime.

Re:Why is this different?

[Halborr]

That actually makes sense (and I realize that YANAL). I always wondered why the laws were different. Different organizations running them!

Re:Why is this different?

[socz]

You know, fuck you.

A criminal is someone that takes your stuff. It doesn't matter if you locked it down or not. They take it == crime. What kind of fucked up word is this now that if you don't lock it down enough, then it's free for all?? No wander companies are turning to DRM - your mindset is what is causing it.

PS. You can pick any lock with a drill. Enough said.

It actually does matter if you "lock it down or not." That is what Intellectual Property and rights are all about. For example, I can come up with a product or even just a name for something and even use it for a while. But if I don't actively protect it then I can actually lose the rights to it! Look into the FreeBSD Daemon art (original artist) for more info.

And in all honestly, it depends on the situation and the circumstance. For example, is it the fault of a random "bad person" who tried to break into my CRX Si and failed? Here are some more details:
* They didn't get in - they used a screw driver IN THE LOCKS instead of the cover plate than grants EZ access (obviously they didn't know WTF they were doing).
* I had left my wallet on the floor the passenger seat. Had that not been there, they would have not attempted to break into the car.
* The item of most value would be the stereo and its components, yet nothing had ever occurred on that street in the previous 10 years

And in the end, you know what my reaction was? "It was my fault, because I left the wallet in the car." Sometimes it's good to take personal responsibility.

On another occasion, someone stole my bike from 7-Eleven while I was playing Street Fight II. I was so upset! I just ran in for a quick game (only 25 cents on me). And when I looked back to check (in between rounds) I saw my bike missing. Was it my fault? Yes. Should I have had a chain to put on it? Yes. Should a random person have taken it? No. So from your mind set, I did nothing wrong, the person who took the bike is the only one to blame.

Re:Why is this different?

[NotBornYesterday]

If anything S.P. should be footing the bill for all the proceedings simply because she used such easy/obvious answers that it was inevitable to happen.

Great idea. Maybe we could make rape victims pay to prosecute and incarcerate their attackers. After all, look how they were dressed ... they were clearly asking for it.

Don't blame the victim, moron.

Re:Why is this different?

[sjames]

Dogs and children don't know any better through no fault of their own, so we cut them some slack and watch out for them. We hold the gun owner responsible since it is an intrinsically dangerous object that needs to be kept secure, though there is some room to argue to what extent the owner should be responsible and at what point has the owner shown due care to no longer be responsible for accidents. The hypothetical joyrider knows very well that's not his car. The owner might have taken a risk by leaving it unlocked, but that is not legally a mitigating circumstance for the thief.

Re:Why is this different?

[nbert]

The quality of the password, or the size of the lock doesn't matter.

In real life I'd totally agree. But you don't secure your house with a lock which opens if you state the place where you met your future husband as prove of your identity. Just imagine how a case of trespassing would end in court if you had such kind of security.

He crossed a line, but is it really computer fraud if you bypass a system by common knowledge?

Whenever I'm forced to state my favorite dog or my mother's maiden name I type some random stuff - everything else would be highly irresponsible.

Re:Why is this different?

[Nutria]

"It was my fault, because I left the wallet in the car."

There's criminal fault, and then there's "metaphysical" (certainly there's a better word for the concept!) fault.

The foolish-but-quite-legal act of you leaving your wallet in the car does not grant someone else the right to break into your car.

Re:Why is this different?

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed. Should have locked that sucker down. Now I gotta run to the next room since you got this one.

Re:Why is this different?

[konohitowa]

I don't feel sorry for you about your bike. I feel mildly sorry for you about your car. I have no sympathy in either case for the criminal. However, if the police had found the criminal in either case, I think you should have paid them thousands of dollars for the recovery plus court costs for the prosecution. Not. Turns out the DA, cops, and prosecuting attorney already get paid to do that job via our taxes.

Again, as the AC said (quite astutely), it's the mindset that equates the victims own lack of security with a waive for the criminal that also puts companies in the position of having DRM. So, realistically, I would hope that you at least aren't one of those people crying and gnashing their teeth about the evils of DRM (and if you weren't the one that originally cast blame on Palin for not having security questions as tough as you would have liked, then sorry -- I'm pointing this particular comment at that person, not you).

Anyway, rant aside, I am also about personal responsibility -- but it's more about admitting where you could have reasonably changed the outcome (which is exactly what you did in your post, so pat on the back there) so that you have an opportunity to grow rather than buying into the victim culture, which does nothing but keep you at the level of victim (a very handy political device, in my opinion). However, it in no way diminishes the culpability of the criminal -- they're still just as guilty due to the same personal responsibility issues.

Re:Why is this different?

[Anonymous Coward]

If anything S.P. should be footing the bill for all the proceedings simply because she used such easy/obvious answers that it was inevitable to happen.

Great idea. Maybe we could make rape victims pay to prosecute and incarcerate their attackers. After all, look how they were dressed ... they were clearly asking for it. Don't blame the victim, moron.

That's why the muslims say they want their women to cover their face, to keep from making their men sexually aggressive. So maybe they have it right?

Re:Why is this different?

[socz]

Just imagine how a case of trespassing would end in court if you had such kind of security. He crossed a line, but is it really computer fraud if you bypass a system by common knowledge? Whenever I'm forced to state my favorite dog or my mother's maiden name I type some random stuff - everything else would be highly irresponsible.

That is the best way to put it. I don't know why people really think it's so bad to blame someone who facilitates the retrieval of one's "personal" information.

If you're a public persona, then you need to have better security than joe the plumber. That means no dogs name in your password or question, and nothing that is search able.

It's ok to mix up the questions a bit. Shoot, use a fail-safe phrase and enter as all answers to all questions except password.

When something is common knowledge, it really isn't useful for resetting your password, is it?

Re:Why is this different?

[robi2106]

"He crossed a line, but is it really computer fraud if you bypass a system by common knowledge?"

Yes, that is called unauthorized access. Just because you know of a server's patch level, does not mean you can root it using a known exploit for the lulz. Or for profit. Or for altruistic reasons.

All are still illegal.

Re:Why is this different?

[coolsnowmen]

"Sorry about turning off your respirator, but that should have been keylocked, you know...I couldn't resist."

You went a bit far with this one. Huge difference between theft and manslaughter.

Re:Why is this different?

[Labcoat Samurai]

It actually does matter if you "lock it down or not." That is what Intellectual Property and rights are all about. For example, I can come up with a product or even just a name for something and even use it for a while. But if I don't actively protect it then I can actually lose the rights to it!

Yeah? That's not about protecting it from being stolen. That's about protecting its status as legally yours. So you're equivocating a bit on the notion of "locking something down". You don't have the right to things in my house because I don't protect them, and you never will. Having to fight to protect intellectual property rights is more akin to having to establish an item as yours in the first place, and it's because all ideas share one space. I can have a car and you can have the same model of car. If I drive my car, I'm fine. But if I go take your car, it's stealing. With intellectual property, on the other hand, there's only one car, and both of us claim to own it. If you can convince a court that it's yours, then you legally get it.

On another occasion, someone stole my bike from 7-Eleven while I was playing Street Fight II. I was so upset! I just ran in for a quick game (only 25 cents on me). And when I looked back to check (in between rounds) I saw my bike missing. Was it my fault? Yes. Should I have had a chain to put on it? Yes. Should a random person have taken it? No. So from your mind set, I did nothing wrong, the person who took the bike is the only one to blame.

That's exactly right. You did nothing wrong in leaving your bike unsecured. Stupid, maybe. Wrong, no. You are not at all to blame for it being stolen. Failure to prevent an event is not equivalent to being responsible for the event. It's exactly this sort of "blame the victim" mentality that he was saying is wrong. It was his whole point.

Besides, where do you draw a line? If you had locked it up and it was stolen anyway, is it your fault for not taking *good enough* precautions? Do we generally rule that the victim is at fault if he or she hasn't tried at some arbitrary threshold we call "good enough" to prevent the crime? So if a woman is raped in a dark alley, that's totally her fault, but if she's raped by a close friend, that's only partly her fault for choosing friends poorly. If she had also taken kung fu, but was still overpowered, then and only then could we assign her no blame at all in clear conscience.

Re:Why is this different?

[Labcoat Samurai]

I can have a car and you can have the same model of car. If I drive my car, I'm fine. But if I go take your car, it's stealing.

I also considered using milkshakes for this analogy, but I figured "hey, it's slashdot; let's go with cars."

Re:Why is this different?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, and when your house gets broken into you should pay all expenses for the person being charged with breaking into your house because you used such idiotic security measures as glass windows, wooden doors and walls, and the type of lock you can buy from any hardware store. If you weren't such an idiot about security you wouldn't have had such lame security measures. You would have had bars on your windows, titanium reinforced doors and door frames and your house walls made steel-reinforced concrete at least 18" thick with armor plating, along with a $100,000 alarm system and the most expensive, hacker-proof locks you can buy.

If you hadn't been so stupid about security your house wouldn't have been such an attractive target, so it's your fault you were robbed. Idiot.

I'm still confused by something...

[Pojut]

I understand (and agree) that the guy should be punished for hacking this account, but how come nothing ever happend about Palin conducting official State business using her personal email account? Is it because the information was technically obtained illegaly? Or did something happen and I just missed it...?

Re:I'm still confused by something...

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it because the information was technically obtained illegaly?

Yes.

Re:I'm still confused by something...

[Jeng]

If they went after Palin for it they would also have to go after the Bush administration for doing the same thing.

Re:I'm still confused by something...

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you seriously think Palin will be held responsible for anything?

She's a master at evading responsiblity. She even supposedly got her daughter off scot-free for $20K in damages to someone else's house during a party. See here and here.

As long as there is corrupt cronyism, the guilty can do whatever they want.

Re:I'm still confused by something...

[fishbowl]

>Or did something happen and I just missed it...?

At the very most, the state could have forced an early end to her term as Governor. Even though the state didn't seek to do that, she resigned anyway. Clearly not satisfying to Palin's detractors, but the end result is the same without the state legislature suffering political consequences that would have followed from confronting Palin on that particular issue.

Re:I'm still confused by something...

[etymxris]

No, that's not it. As long as the person is not working as an "agent of the state", anything they do is admissible. This came up when a hacker kept hacking into pedophiles' computers and turning them into the police. The courts ruled he was not working as an agent of the state, since the police had no control over him.

Re:I'm still confused by something...

[jDeepbeep]

how come nothing ever happend about Palin conducting official State business using her personal email account?

Precisely my question. *waits for replies*

Re:I'm still confused by something...

[furball]

The court determined that she wasn't in violation. Take it up with the court if you disagree.

http://www.ktuu.com/Global/story.asp?S=11867946

Re:I'm still confused by something...

[TrancePhreak]

If they went after the Bush administration for doing it, they would have to go after the Obama administration also. It's a slippery slope that leads to everyone getting attacked.

Re:I'm still confused by something...

[Junior J. Junior III]

It's OK as far as I know to prosecute on information obtained illegally, as long as the perpetrators of the illegal information gathering were not law enforcement. IANAL, so...

Re:I'm still confused by something...

[Anonymous Coward]

You'd be suprised how often this happens.. definitly not just her, nor just the US. Usually it's to get around what they view as annoying restrictions we put in place (attachments etc)

Dumb yes, but uncommon no.

Re:I'm still confused by something...

[hoggoth]

Wow, that's a slippery slope. So the police can "encourage" third parties to obtain evidence illegally, then use that evidence. For various definitions of "encourage" which will include pay, bribe, threaten, trade, plea-bargain, extort, harass, intimidate, and some I probably haven't thought of.

Re:I'm still confused by something...

[TheMeuge]

They do.

Re:I'm still confused by something...

[coaxial]

Wow, that's a slippery slope. So the police can "encourage" third parties to obtain evidence illegally, then use that evidence. For various definitions of "encourage" which will include pay, bribe, threaten, trade, plea-bargain, extort, harass, intimidate, and some I probably haven't thought of.

And if the police did any of those things, the third party would automatically become an agent of the state. Just like an employee.

Re:I'm still confused by something...

[HeckRuler]

Really? You've got creditable evidence that the Obama administration is using personal email to circumvent email logging and conduct official business "off the record"?

That would be fascinating to hear about, tell us more.

Re:I'm still confused by something...

[Anonymous Coward]

That article does a horrible job and totally misses the point of the ruling by focusing on the emotional side. It turns out, the public records law was really lax, so it was up to Palin to decide what was official business and what wasn't. As well, she could call any message "transitory" and it didn't need to be preserved either. The ruling could apply to e-mailed not handed over from state computers just as well.

Re:I'm still confused by something...

[hoggoth]

Yeah, right.

Can I live in your world? It's so clean and simple.

Cop: "Hey Louie, I haven't arrested you in months. Living clean?"
Louie: "Yeah, don't bother me. I've been staying outta trouble."
Cop: "Look Louie, I think I smell something in your car. I think I have to run you in. Or maybe you can help me out. I need some stuff that's in that house over there."

Just like an employee.
I wonder if he gets dental.

Re:I'm still confused by something...

[phorm]

Unless they found some other evidence during the investigation, I'd say that anything on the computer should have been automatically tossed out. It's pretty easy for said "hacker" to plant evidence on the computer of people he didn't like.

Still, as grounds for a proper search warrant it should be OK. If they find actual pictures or hard media (not the computer hard drive) then they could go for the conviction.

That's as long as - of course - the hacker wasn't working FOR the police, and also if he himself were caught they should prosecute him under wiretap etc laws...

Re:I'm still confused by something...

[medcalf]

There was a news story just last week, IIRC, about exactly that. Someone who used to work at Google using his gmail account for official business for the administration, I think. Too lazy to look up the details, though, so no "informative" mods for me.

Re:I'm still confused by something...

[Tarsir]

Yes... unless your lawyer finds out that there's some connection between the police and the third party who is hacking you, and then gets the evidence thrown out... And you'd be happy, but some other Slashdotter would take your place to rail against the rich using high-powered lawyers to buy their way out of trouble. :P

Re:I'm still confused by something...

[Anonymous Coward]

Well I hacked into his email account using information I found on Wikipedia and then ... wait I see what you did there.

Re:I'm still confused by something...

[hoggoth]

You heard the judge. It wouldn't be thrown out unless the third party works for law enforcement.

Re:I'm still confused by something...

[Estanislao Mart�nez]

Wow, that's a slippery slope. So the police can "encourage" third parties to obtain evidence illegally, then use that evidence. For various definitions of "encourage" which will include pay, bribe, threaten, trade, plea-bargain, extort, harass, intimidate, and some I probably haven't thought of.

As a general rule, if a cop gets a third party to do a search for him, the third party is acting as an agent of the cop, and therefore as an agent of the authorities, and the evidence then becomes unadmissible. There are all sorts of edge cases, and setting out the rules to deal with these is the bread and butter of appellate courts.

Re:I'm still confused by something...

[Anonymous Coward]

No, because when someone commits an action at the encouragement of the state they become an agent of the state. A cop can't ask someone to enter someones garage and tell him what he sees.

Also say you are growing pot in your basement. If a public utility worker enters to read your water meter and sees your purple haze operation, and reports it, police cannot use that as evidence because the public utility worker is considered an agent of the state.

Re:I'm still confused by something...

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like an agent of the state. They don't get dental.

Re:I'm still confused by something...

[huckamania]

More unsubstantiated hear say to go along with all of the other whispers about Sarah and her family.

So basically a home up for sale was broken into by 3 adult boys, some underage boys and some underage girls. A party occurred and some damage was done. When caught, all of the boys blame one of the underage girls, whose mother just happens to be the ex-governor of the state. The ex-governor then starts calling in favors, intimidating the other parents and calling secret meetings with state officials to cover up her daughter's crime.

Or at least, that's what 1 blogger says happened and another blogger has decided must be the truth.

Sorry, but color me not convinced.

Re:I'm still confused by something...

[mortonda]

Too lazy to look up the details, though, so no "informative" mods for me.

You think that proof is required to get modded up as informative here on /.? You must be new here.

Re:I'm still confused by something...

[Labcoat Samurai]

I have no idea what she may or may not have done while she was there, but there's no way that she thought it was legal for her to be in that house doing whatever it was she was doing. Let's say, for sake of argument, that some random guy broke down my front door and then, later, Willow Palin noticed my door was open, walked in, spent several hours hanging out in my house, broke nothing and took nothing. Unless I'm crazy (which is always a possibility), it's still criminal trespassing. If she accompanied the guy as he broke my door down and hung out with him and then neglected to tell anyone about it, IANAL, but that sort of complicity seems like it should be worth some equivalent of an accessory charge.

And finally, the fact that the girls were let off scot free and the boys were all charged really bugs me. There are facts I don't know, but the fact that *all* the girls were freed and *all* the boys were punished suggests the sort of sexist doublestandard I've become all too used to in this society. Surely girls are too sweet and innocent to have done such a thing!

Re:I'm still confused by something...

[Discrete_infinity]

Hmm, here in the U.S. where I am utility workers are not government employees. The very situation you described happened and the individual was arrested, arraigned and prosecuted.

Re:I'm still confused by something...

[hguorbray]

Actually, the Bushies DID do something like this:

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1610414,00.html ...50 of its staffers may have violated the Presidential Records Act. The staffers, the White House said, were using e-mail accounts, laptops and BlackBerries provided by the Republican National Committee for official executive branch communications rather than the exclusively political work for which they were intended. Because the RNC had a policy until 2004 of erasing all e-mails on its servers after 30 days, including those by White House staffers, and because some of those staffers may have deleted e-mails on their own, the White House said it could not assure Congress that they have not violated the PRA, which requires the retention of official White House documents. The White House officials who may have broken the law include senior adviser Karl Rove, his deputies and much of their staffs.

and AFAIK none of them got into the least bit of trouble for it (although Rove was eventually convicted of doing other bad things)

-I'm just sayin'

Re:I'm still confused by something...

[Nutria]

Also say you are growing pot in your basement. If a public utility worker enters to read your water meter and sees your purple haze operation, and reports it

Show me an indoor water meter.

Anyway, "accidental discovery" is perfectly legal. The defense attorney would fight it, though.

Re:I'm still confused by something...

[Achromatic1978]

Also say you are growing pot in your basement. If a public utility worker enters to read your water meter and sees your purple haze operation, and reports it, police cannot use that as evidence because the public utility worker is considered an agent of the state.

Perhaps you are unaware, but a large number of pot busts happen precisely because the utility, water or electricity, notices way higher (or lower) utility usage than would normally be expected for that residence.

Re:I'm still confused by something...

[Hatta]

If they went after the Bush administration for doing it, they would have to go after the Obama administration also. It's a slippery slope that leads to everyone getting attacked.

GOOD. If both sides are equally corrupt, then fucking prosecute both sides for corruption.

Re:I'm still confused by something...

[robi2106]

it is called polluting the evidence. if an officer performs a random strip search on you with no P.C. and finds drugs in a baggie, the prosecution of said drug possession offense and any conviction arising from it are polluted by the initial illegal search. That chain of evidence is polluted. This is what the 4th Amendment to the US Constitution is there to protect.

Re:I'm still confused by something...

[Achromatic1978]

You don't recall correctly. The story was that someone who used to work at Google, and who now works for the administration, had according to his Google Buzz, several senior Google people as some of his most frequent contacts. And was complaining, publicly, about the privacy implications of Buzz.

Smoke, maybe, not fire.

Re:I'm still confused by something...

[evilviper]

So the police can "encourage" third parties to obtain evidence illegally, then use that evidence.

Nope. If any kind of encouragement can be shown, whether active or passive, those third parties become agents of the police, and are bound by the same laws.

Re:I'm still confused by something...

[sumdumass]

I have been to a few abandoned house parties. It doesn't generally go down like that.

First, someone breaks into the house and unlocks the doors. Then they contact others to come and party, most of which is causes those people to invite others. In the one, I left a bar for an after hours party in a house that turned out to be someone's on vacation but I didn't know that until two weeks later when they returned and it was on the news. In the other situation, I was walking down a street and some girls asked me if I was going to the party, they essentially invited me in. They said someone was having a moving party and wanted as many people as possible to show up. Again, about a week later, I recognized the house on the news.

So I have to ask, did the boys invite the girls over as if they had the authority to do so and be there or did they say "we broke into a house, come over and trash it"? The difference is the amount of culpability you would have. If you broke down in your car, went to the nearest house, knocked on the door and asked to use the phone when someone, answered, if they allow you to enter and use the phone and it turns out they broke into the place, you are not guilty of breaking and entering, or robbery or anything also.

Re:I'm still confused by something...

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Wow, that's a slippery slope. So the police can "encourage" third parties to obtain evidence illegally, then use that evidence. For various definitions of "encourage" which will include pay, bribe, threaten, trade, plea-bargain, extort, harass, intimidate, and some I probably haven't thought of.

No, in a case like that the person is considerd to be acting as an agent of the police which make it just as inadmissible as if the cops had done it themselves.

Re:I'm still confused by something...

[JoeInnes]

I'd love to see ANY hacker turn a computer into the police. It'd solve the crisis we have in the UK of not enough bobbies on the beat.

Re:I'm still confused by something...

[ukyoCE]

I've always wondered that about "undercover" underage alcohol buyers. How is it not entrapment to go up to someone and offer to pay them for goods illegally? Is it OK because the kid isn't a law enforcement officer?

Re:I'm still confused by something...

[Labcoat Samurai]

That's a fair point, and there are certainly still things I don't know about the events and can't comfortably assume, but the situation where they are genuinely innocent of wrongdoing seems far more contrived than the one where they share in the guilt. Sounds like there were 12 teens total, 7 of which were girls who ended up not being charged.

The place suffered extensive damage, so I suppose we would have to conjecture that the boys broke in first, invited the girls over, pretending to own the place or otherwise have a right to be there, none of the 7 girls knew otherwise, none of the 5 boys accidentally let it slip to any of the 7 girls, the 5 boys trashed the place and the girls believed that at least one of these boys had the authority to do so.

The story goes on to allege several other "facts" about the case, such as Willow being the one who led them to the house in the first place, and everyone being together at the time the house was broken into, but I don't know how much everyone has admitted or what their stories were so I'll stick to the most basic of facts, which still have me extremely skeptical that the girls are all innocent parties.

Re:I'm still confused by something...

[Anonymous Coward]

I like that he's sitting at 0, and you're the one that got modded +5 informative

Re:I'm still confused by something...

[Anonymous Coward]

only if it becomes known to the public

Re:I'm still confused by something...

[sumdumass]

You have made some assumptions that seem to cross over even though you admitted there are things about the event that you do not know.

You see, innocent of wrong doing has distinct meanings here that can be separated into two or more categories. The primary ones we need to be concerned with because of the thread discussion is whether or not something is illegal or legal even if it is still wrong. Here is an example, Suppose you and one of your friends wrestle each other or do something just as stupid as stuff sometimes happens with about any set of friends. Now suppose that when you and your friend are doing this at a third person's house (wrestling or whatever), someone's foot hits the wall and punches a hole through it or you fall into a banister which then breaks. Now, have you done anything illegal? The answer to that is no in most places. Have you done anything wrong? The answer to that is yes, you took part in activity that damaged the property of someone else. Now, if you broke into the third person's house and caused the damage, it could be illegal, and if you did the damage deliberately, it could be illegal. But without those facts being established, it's just an accident caused by reckless or foolish behavior.

Now suppose you deliberately punched a hole in the wall. Well, that in and of itself doesn't make it illegal. You see, you could have been lead to believe the destruction of the property was desirable. I went to a friends house once who was remodeling and we were able to knock out several closets and non-load bearing walls to help his father open the space up to conform with a new floor plan. So even deliberate destruction of property isn't illegal unless certain elements are present.

So lets move this into the situation you next describe.

The place suffered extensive damage, so I suppose we would have to conjecture that the boys broke in first, invited the girls over, pretending to own the place or otherwise have a right to be there, none of the 7 girls knew otherwise, none of the 5 boys accidentally let it slip to any of the 7 girls, the 5 boys trashed the place and the girls believed that at least one of these boys had the authority to do so.

Suppose the boys did break in first, suppose they invited the girls saying it was someone's uncle's house and they did it all the time. So the right to be there is established and non of the other girls knew otherwise or they weren't able to prove they knew otherwise. Ok, so one of the boys knocks a hole in the wall, he tells everyone else to do the same because his uncle is tearing the walls down to remodel. So now the girls participate in creating the damage but have done nothing illegal (Mens rea) yet. Or at least nothing that can prove it was illegal until one of them admits to knowing or admits that the others would have known.

So perhaps it was only the boys which admitted to knowing what they did or perhaps the boys told a story that protected the girls. Even if the girls knew about it, there are tons of reasons why they weren't prosecuted with the main ones being the ability to prove their "legal" guilt. Another reason is because the girls had less participation in which their witnessing against the guys was more valuable in getting a conviction. It doesn't make what happened any less bad, it only takes the ability for it to be illegal off the table.

This BTW, is something that is common in almost any jurisdiction and probably happens in your home town more often then not. This is also why laws like receiving stolen property and so on are on the books. It's for when they cannot show Mens rea to stick the crime to them, then can show possession and a reason to believe the possession wasn't legal.

The story goes on to allege several other "facts" about the case, such as Willow being the one who led them to the house in the first place, and everyone being together at the time the house was bro

Re:I'm still confused by something...

[Labcoat Samurai]

So the proposed explanation for the girls being complicit in $20,000 worth of damage is that the boys told them that some uncle had said it was ok to "knock out a wall" for construction purposes. hey, I'm not saying it's impossible. That seems a particularly poor hypothetical explanation, but my point was not that it is not at all possible but rather the scenario in which all of the girls are free of guilt and none of the boys are seems extremely contrived and strained next to the scenario where they share in the guilt, and I think your response illustrates that nicely.

Palin had already stepped down as governor when this happened. The presidential race was over, she hadn't been governor or a presidential candidate for a while (several months). So the suggestion of puling strings and so on is sort of misplaced when there are so many legitimate reasons for not prosecuting the girls.

So you are incredulous that Palin still has the ability to pull strings or that she still has the motivation? Because neither of those seems particularly hard to swallow. Palin remains an extremely influential figure, so the ability to pull strings seems a given to me. And as for motivation, well, keeping her daughter out of trouble is one motivation. Saving herself public embarrassment since she continues to be an influential public figure is also reasonable.

Re:I'm still confused by something...

[sumdumass]

So the proposed explanation for the girls being complicit in $20,000 worth of damage is that the boys told them that some uncle had said it was ok to "knock out a wall" for construction purposes. hey, I'm not saying it's impossible. That seems a particularly poor hypothetical explanation, but my point was not that it is not at all possible but rather the scenario in which all of the girls are free of guilt and none of the boys are seems extremely contrived and strained next to the scenario where they share in the guilt, and I think your response illustrates that nicely.

No, that's not what I said at all. I said the concept could have been that way or similar. I see you also got lost on the difference between wrong and illegal. Guilt in this case can actually be separated into the two categories. one concerning the act and one concerning the illegality of the act. The world is really going to puzzle you if you can't tell the difference here.

So you are incredulous that Palin still has the ability to pull strings or that she still has the motivation? Because neither of those seems particularly hard to swallow. Palin remains an extremely influential figure, so the ability to pull strings seems a given to me. And as for motivation, well, keeping her daughter out of trouble is one motivation. Saving herself public embarrassment since she continues to be an influential public figure is also reasonable.

Well, she has no power over the investigation process or the prosecution process so she couldn't just order it to be hidden. If because of her stature in the community, she was able to dissuade prosecution, then the political as well as professional careers of all those involved would be on the line- especially seeing how Palin is a target by the left.

So you are saying that it's unlikely that the prosecutors couldn't find enough evidence to go after the girls or that the prosecutor didn't trade prosecution of the girls for testimony against the boys (crap that happens all over the place all the time), and instead, all of the investigating officers, their superiors, the prosecution, perhaps the grand jury, and every other person connected to the case, all of them decided to put their livelihood and freedoms at risk and conspired with Palin to cover up something that was publicly known that her kid was involved with. If I was a betting person, my money would be on the answer that happens all over the place, all the time, across this great country. My bet would be on the answer that suggest the ability to prosecute wasn't that strong seeing how it would almost require an admission from someone as to the mental state of willow.

It's more likely that the kids and their parents feared Palin more then the cops and prosecutors and they weren't willing to testify than professionals risking jail time for corruption.

Re:I'm still confused by something...

[Labcoat Samurai]

I see you also got lost on the difference between wrong and illegal.

No I didn't. I'm really not saying a whole lot for you to disagree with, and the fact that you continue to argue on more than purely subjective grounds suggests to me that you aren't really getting what I'm saying. Which, when I think about it, doesn't particularly matter to me one way or another, so I'll happily agree to disagree here.

Re:I'm still confused by something...

[sumdumass]

Actually, I think you are. You said that a particular scenario when I used the scenario as illustrative and not definite, was "extremely contrived and strained next to the scenario where they share in the guilt". In my scenario, a number of different things could have happened to which they would share guilt but not be criminally liable/guilty. You seemed to get lost on the entire separation between the two. You can be guilty of destroying someone's property and not be guilty of breaking any laws. I never intended for the situation to be construed as all the girls were innocent or guiltless, in which you attempted to portray which is why I made the statement that you got lost. I even purposed a scenario where their involvement was so shaky as for a prosecution that it was more valuable for them to testify against the boys instead which is what happened.

The girls could have been complicit and guilty of the act. The question is if there was enough evidence to prosecute them or not or if their involvement lacked a provable Mens rea.

Re:I'm still confused by something...

[Labcoat Samurai]

You said that a particular scenario when I used the scenario as illustrative and not definite, was "extremely contrived and strained next to the scenario where they share in the guilt"

I wasn't describing just your particular scenario. I was describing any scenario I could come up with.

In my scenario, a number of different things could have happened to which they would share guilt but not be criminally liable/guilty.

Yes, and I found your scenario possible but far fetched.

You seemed to get lost on the entire separation between the two.

To you, perhaps.

The Firm

[Anonymous Coward]

Go Airwolf!

Re:Two Stupid People

[Vinegar Joe]

About as stupid as Obama?

"A Frenchman who police say hacked Twitter accounts belonging to US President Barack Obama and celebrities could face jail."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8586269.stm

So you kill a guy, can get out in 2 years min

[unity100]

but you do this, and you get 20 years on average.

it seems like u.s. justice system is so fucked up.

Re:So you kill a guy, can get out in 2 years min

[Anonymous Coward]

You've confused three completely different things -- minimum, maximum, and average.

First of all, the penalty for the e-mail guy is 20 years maximum not average. Second of all, it really doesn't make a lot of sense to try to draw conclusions from comparing one crime's minimum sentence to another crime's maximum sentence, even if you try to confuse the issue by saying "average" instead of "maximum". I highly doubt the average murderer gets out in 2 years.

Re:So you kill a guy, can get out in 2 years min

[ShadowRangerRIT]

Two years only happens in extenuating circumstances (say, a woman kills her rapist after the fact; it's murder, but it's really hard to apply a tough sentence). Murder is rarely punished with a mere two years. That said, sentencing guidelines are fscked up, because it's always easier to appear "tough on crime" than it is to establish just guidelines.

Re:So you kill a guy, can get out in 2 years min

[Wyatt Earp]

You can kill a guy and never go to jail, like Laura Bush, or a woman and never go to jail like Ted Kennedy.

Re:So you kill a guy, can get out in 2 years min

[ShadowRangerRIT]

Also, the maximum sentence is 20 years, not the average sentence. Obstruction of justice covers a lot of scenarios, so the 20 years is for the guy who goes around cleaning the blood and fingerprints off the murder weapons of a friend of his (yes, accomplice after the fact to murder would cover this, but you get the idea). I have a really hard time believing this guy will get anything close to 20 years.

Re:So you kill a guy, can get out in 2 years min

[flaming error]

> it seems like u.s. justice system is so fucked up.
It probably is. But your post here, vastly understating murder sentences and exaggerating obstruction charges, is a good example of how twisted and oblivious to reality the American mind can be. And, since people like you often vote, we don't really have to look that far to see why the "system is so fucked up".

Re:So you kill a guy, can get out in 2 years min

[unity100]

apart from the fact that im not american

Re:So you kill a guy, can get out in 2 years min

[kalirion]

So "obstructing justice" relating to a misdemeanor is a felony?

Re:So you kill a guy, can get out in 2 years min

[ShadowRangerRIT]

Yeah, that bothers me too. I'm not in favor of punishing the cover up more harshly than the crime.

Re:So you kill a guy, can get out in 2 years min

[westlake]

but you do this, and you get 20 years on average.
it seems like u.s. justice system is so fucked up.

In the American federal system, murder is almost always prosecuted under state law. Sentencing Guidelines As Applied To Murder [Oregon, 1998]

You want to see a change in sentencing? Talk to your state legislator.

Re:So you kill a guy, can get out in 2 years min

[neurovish]

Also, the maximum sentence is 20 years, not the average sentence. Obstruction of justice covers a lot of scenarios, so the 20 years is for the guy who goes around cleaning the blood and fingerprints off the murder weapons of a friend of his (yes, accomplice after the fact to murder would cover this, but you get the idea). I have a really hard time believing this guy will get anything close to 20 years.

Obstruction of justice is almost always going to yield a stiffer sentence than whatever the original charge was. I don't think the guy cleaning blood and fingerprints off of a murder weapon would be obstruction of justice unless the police were knocking on the door before he started doing it.

Re:So you kill a guy, can get out in 2 years min

[Zordak]

Or in other words, you can be a dumb 17-year-old girl and negligently run a stop sign, thereby accidentally killing a classmate, and not go to jail. Or you can be an adult member of one of the most influential and powerful political families in the nation, and (quite likely) be driving drunk, and when you put your car in the drink and strongly suspect that you have drowned your passenger, and then fail to report it until morning when you will no longer test positive, and the delay could possibly be a proximate cause of your passenger's death, depending on whose theories you listen to, and your family's money and political connections could ensure that you never go to jail.

I seriously doubt that either one was intentional, but they're also not really analogous. In one case, the circumstances are very consistent with a teenage girl not paying attention. In the other case, the circumstances are very consistent with somebody who has big political ambitions probably not setting out to hurt anyone, but realizing he screwed up big time, and doing his best to cover it up.

Re:So you kill a guy, can get out in 2 years min

[kalirion]

Well I guess at least he didn't try to cover up the cover up, right? Otherwise he'd be facing consecutive life sentences...

Re:So you kill a guy, can get out in 2 years min

[sumdumass]

Did you know that they estimated Kennedy was traveling at speeds between 70 and 90 miles per hour? Thay say it would have to of been that fast in order for the impact to blow the woman's panties off and put them in the glove box.

Obstruction of justice

[Hatta]

What did he do that qualifies as obstruction of justice?

Re:Obstruction of justice

[Korey Kaczor]

He ran away from the feds when they came knocking, and apparently formatted his hard drive to erase evidence (the wikipedia page says deleted, but I'm guessing that's what he did).

Re:Obstruction of justice

[etymxris]

Erasing his hard drive would have been perfectly fine if he did it before he realized he was the subject of an investigation.

Re:Obstruction of justice

[Korey Kaczor]

True, though, wouldn't shock me if they just said whatever they could to see what would stick.

Kid's laywer probably wasn't amazing if the kid was dumb enough to plead not guilty.

Re:Obstruction of justice

[Anonymous Coward]

Obstruction? You could say he facilitated the justice of examining how Palin purposefully avoided records retention of her business as Governor. Which crime is more significant here?

Re:Obstruction of justice

[Sechr Nibw]

I wondered the same thing. Here's what I found: http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2010/apr/23/fbi-kernell-tried-to-destroy-proof-of-e-mail/

But the crux of their obstruction case came from testimony by McFall, a computer expert so skilled he was tapped to help organize the FBI's elite Computer Analysis and Response Team, or CART.
McFall said his probe was stymied by a series of steps authorities allege Kernell took to cover his tracks, including deleting from the computer material gleaned from Palin's account, clearing his Internet history on one Web browser, uninstalling another browser and running a Windows tool designed to speed a computer up by overwriting space occupied by deleted files.

Re:Obstruction of justice

[josath]

The courts have decided that what Palin did was not a crime. So I'd say a crime is more significant than a non-crime.

Re:Obstruction of justice

[agrif]

I can see how deleting the material would be obstruction of justice, and possibly how uninstalling a web browser could be (this could have been innocent, though that's not likely in this case).

I am extremely concerned, however, that clearing browser history and deleting files (especially when deleted securely by writing over them with zeroes) could be obstruction of justice. I clear my internet history regularly and delete files with secure removal methods... because I value privacy! I don't want any more information about myself on my various computers than I would be willing to tell anyone. Anything that I need to store that I don't trust everyone with, I encrypt.

God forbid I ever come under suspicion of anything, I bet telling a jury I have "encrypted files" would be enough to convict me of anything.

Re:Obstruction of justice

[Anonymous Coward]

running a Windows tool designed to speed a computer up by overwriting space occupied by deleted files.

You mean he defraged?

Re:Obstruction of justice

[Anonymous Coward]

So now taking the fifth is obstruction of justice?

Re:Obstruction of justice

[sumdumass]

Kid's laywer probably wasn't amazing if the kid was dumb enough to plead not guilty.

Pleading not guilty isn't just for people who are innocent. It's not a dumb idea to do so because it opens several avenues to mitigate the punishment that simply isn't present with a no contest or guilty plea.

Anyone who finds themselves in serious (or any) legal trouble should plead not guilty until they can get competent legal counsel and advice. It won't hurt the judge's feelings if the plea is changed later nor will it matter much if your found guilty unless you turned down a plea bargain from something lesser.

Re:Obstruction of justice

[sumdumass]

Clearing the browser history and deleting files isn't obstruction until after you have reason to believe they will be evidence. It's like throwing a gun away after a murder, it's just murder if you do it after the fact, but it becomes obstruction when the cops come around asking you about the murder and your gun then you throw it out.

So you do not really have anything to fear from cleaning your computer and keeping it running in good shape. Well, that is until after some LEO attempts to seize you or the computer as evidence then you continue to delete things.

Pardon him

[Anonymous Coward]

...find him some work, and deny the Palins a scalp.

They just wanted revenge and Tennessee obliged.

Justice?

[rpgdude]

I understand computer fraud, but obstruction of justice? Exactly how was justice obstructed?

Re:Justice?

[a2wflc]

The obstruction of justice charge stems from an allegation by the FBI that Kernell attempted to erase evidence of the crime from his hard drive

Re:Justice?

[geekoid]

I wonder if wiping your fingerprints after a robbery constitutes obstruction of justice?

Re:Justice?

[Bugamn]

It was not his fault, it was a Kernell Panic.

Re:Justice?

[hldn]

i'll one better you.. wearing gloves to prevent fingerprints from being left is obstruction!

Re:Justice?

[neurovish]

i'll one better you.. wearing gloves to prevent fingerprints from being left is obstruction!

Hah! Not committing robbery in the first place is obstruction since that would leave them without anything with which to charge you!

Re:Justice?

[Anonymous Coward]

note to everyone, use dd to write zeros to disk!

Re:Justice?

[Anonymous Coward]

Having done no research, I'll say that if the person was under investigation at the time, then yes.

Re:Justice?

[Entropy98]

Seriously, is it possible to commit a crime these days without being charged with 10 crimes? Isn't there supposed to be a constitutional amendment against that sort of thing?

Re:Justice?

[Anonymous Coward]

In the US? Yes. Removing evidence after the fact is obstruction. Heck, you can get that charge for trying to eat the pot in your pocket or even just swallowing the crack in your mouth.

20 years?

[majorme]

Can't be real. Please tell me (but don't lie) I am reading this wrong. I guess that's what he deserves eh? One has to wonder if that e-mail account contained "sensitive data" concerning your US "national security" hahah. Oh boy...

Re:20 years?

[chudnall]

Kernell was found guilty of computer fraud - a misdemeanor subject to a prison term of up to one year -- and obstruction of justice, which carries a maximum 20-year sentence.

Don't lie to the feds. They get all bent out of shape about that. Frankly, even if they were to question me about someone else's crime, I would give serious consideration to refusing to speak to them, out of concern that my version of events might not be the same as someone else's, and they might decide that I was the one "misremembering".

Re:20 years?

[Anonymous Coward]

Does that mean the F.B.I. will stop "misremembering" that ol' J.Edgar really was a paranoid fag?

Probation would be an appropriate sentence

[bareman]

if he's a first time offender I hope he doesn't do prison time, but rather gets put on probation with any violation resulting in a long sentence.

Re:Probation would be an appropriate sentence

[coaxial]

Most first time offenders do go to prison.

Re:Double Standard

[Anonymous Coward]

This guy will charged with hacking Sarah Palin's account which is crime.

Where is Sarah Palin's trial for using a non-government account for state business(which is also a crime)?

citation needed:

using a non-government account for state business(which is also a crime)?

Re:Double Standard

[socz]

She can't be prosecuted for that, that's why she quit! derrrrrrr

:P

Re:Two Stupid People

[Archangel Michael]

Yup, just as stupid. Thank you for reminding me.

Re:Double Standard

[Archangel Michael]

Citation needed.

Re:Two Stupid People

[Labcoat Samurai]

"He gained access to Twitter accounts by simply working out the answers to password reminder questions on targets' e-mail accounts, according to investigators. " Seriously, I hate those things. When it used to be allowed, I always just retyped my password into the answers for those security questions. It's always really easy stuff to socially engineer or, in the case of a public figure, look up on google... Did he figure out the name of Obama's first pet, where he went to school, his first job, his mother's maiden name, or what? All of those things have got to be fairly easy to work out.

Lessons learned

[alvinrod]

If you're going to do this, at least become a telecom company first. When they pull this kind of shit, they get a pat on the back.

I will guarantee...(Re:Pardon him)

[joedoc]

...that Palin will ask the judge and the prosecutor to not give the guy any jail time, but maybe a few years probation and some community service.

I doubt throwing the guy in jail was a goal in this action.

Mark my words on this.

Re:I will guarantee...(Re:Pardon him)

[coaxial]

...that Palin will ask the judge and the prosecutor to not give the guy any jail time, but maybe a few years probation and some community service.

I'll take that bet.

Re:I will guarantee...(Re:Pardon him)

[sethstorm]

...that Palin will ask the judge and the prosecutor to not give the guy any jail time, but maybe a few years probation and some community service.
That presumes that the judge is willing to go through with that recommendation, and that they don't weasel word their way out of it. They can make that move publicly, but then pressure the judge through other channels not to do it.

But if they have the conscience to do the Right Thing(tm) and can convince the judge, he still has the felony on him. He'd have to get clemency for that or have that somehow reduced below a felony. That, or move to the few states that don't penalize it at the voting booth.

Either way, they get their scalp.

Re:Double Standard

[Anonymous Coward]

Where is Sarah Palin's trial for using a non-government account for state business(which is also a crime)?

How soon you forget that there are two sets of laws, one for the common folk, and one for "them" in control.

Re:Two Stupid People

[Foobar of Borg]

Did he figure out the name of Obama's first pet, where he went to school, his first job, his mother's maiden name, or what? All of those things have got to be fairly easy to work out.

You mean, people put honest answers in those fields??? [boggles]

Cost of imprisonment isn't worth it.

[pwnies]

Things like this make me sad. Not just because I feel bad for the person, but also because frankly I don't want my taxes spent on keeping this man imprisoned for up to twenty years. Cost of imprisonment is on average 22,650 per year, at 20 years that's $453,000. In my opinion it's not worth that much to keep a man behind bars for guessing a password.

Re:Cost of imprisonment isn't worth it.

[Wyatt Earp]

Yep. Felony conviction, put him on the street with time served.

Re:Cost of imprisonment isn't worth it.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a felony conviction based on moronic laws and he was convicted by a jury most likely unaware of their right and obligation to judge not only his guilt but the laws that would make him guilty.

Basically, we have people in our military and government that have actually physically tortured both guilty and innocent folks, or sanctioned said torture and even tried to cover it up - nothing has happened or will happen to them. But no, you're worried this dude might be on the street with a felony conviction for doing something stupid, then reacting stupidly when he got caught, yet in the way that 95% of folks would have reacted. Geez!

Re:Cost of imprisonment isn't worth it.

[Martz]

As per QI:

"1% of American adults are in prison (2.3m people)

No society in history has imprisoned more of it's citizens than the United States of America

1 in 30 men aged 20-34 are in prison
1 in 9 black males are in prison
There are more 17 year old black people in prison than in college.

Prison labour produces 100% all military helmets, ammunition belts, bullet proof vests, id tags, and other items of uniform

93% of domestic produced paints, 36% of home appliances and 21% of office furniture. This allows the US to compete with Mexican labour - because the workers cannot refuse to work for 25 cents per hour. "

I wonder how much money a single inmate could earn to offset their $453,00 "rehabilitation" bill. It's no wonder the sentances are so harsh.

YouTube clip of QI: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8E7wgFcCefE

Re:Cost of imprisonment isn't worth it.

[Anonymous Coward]

it's not worth that much to keep a man behind bars for guessing a password.

Up to one year for guessing a password. 20 years for lying about it.

Re:Cost of imprisonment isn't worth it.

[fermion]

This is just another example of certain entitled people abusing the court system because the cannot take care of themselves. Here is a case of incompetent person asking the taxpayers to pay for consequences that should have never been necessary in the first place. For instance, would a jury really convict a person for twenty years if they stole a laptop left in a public location? Well, we will see what the Apple iPhone situation results in.

I see this most particularly in the war on drugs. Since Nixon the US has wasted trillions of dollars shutting down small businesses simply because a few incompetent people can't make good choices. Instead of educated the population and trying to apply free market philosophies, we simply waste money in the name of the nanny state.

The best thing to do here is hope the incompetence of this one person is a lesson to others who think that education and thoughtfulness and reasoned debate is a silly diversion, and the ignorance and untrue statements are the way forward. We are not so fortunate, and so the taxpayer has to will be picking up the tab for the next 20 years.

Re:Cost of imprisonment isn't worth it.

[Graff]

...I don't want my taxes spent on keeping this man imprisoned for up to twenty years. Cost of imprisonment is on average 22,650 per year, at 20 years that's $453,000. In my opinion it's not worth that much to keep a man behind bars for guessing a password.

He won't get anything near 20 years. In a case like this he'll get almost no time in a minimal security facility, then he'll be put on probation for a number of years and he might also have to do community service or similar. Total cost to the taxpayer will be minimal, the trial itself will probably cost more than the actual imprisonment.

That being said, you NEED to have the threat of 20 years so that there's a possible consequence to your actions. If you break into someone's e-mail there should be penalties and just the possibility of 20 years behind bars is enough to keep most people from trying this sort of thing. You also need it for repeat offenders so that you can punish them properly. This doesn't mean you always need to give the maximum, that's why it's a maximum and not a set amount.

Re:Cost of imprisonment isn't worth it.

[Moridineas]

There are more 17 year old black people in prison than in college.

Idiot statistic--I and the majority of my friends/acquaintances entered college at age 18, not 17.

1 in 9 black males are in prison

A truly damning statistic for the black community.

Prison labour produces 100% all military helmets, ammunition belts, bullet proof vests, id tags, and other items of uniform

93% of domestic produced paints, 36% of home appliances and 21% of office furniture. This allows the US to compete with Mexican labour - because the workers cannot refuse to work for 25 cents per hour. "

citation needed.

Lastly, I'm not going to do this for you as it would take awhile and I doubt I'll even get a response, but if you're really interested in this topic beyond your believed preconceptions, look up the rates for forced hospitalization (ie, insane asylums) in other countries (ie, Western Europe). I read a LR article several years ago that had a collection of numbers. When you combine the number of people serving forced time in mental institutions and criminal institutions, the numbers between the US and Europe look very different. The US still has more incarcerations, but the number is much closer.

You can certainly make arguments against the US system and it definitely has its flaws, but as usual, hysteria and dumb statistics don't really achieve much,

Re:Cost of imprisonment isn't worth it.

[Martz]

I was quoting the facts stated in the Youtube video (the TV series is called QI (Quite Interesting) which is broadcast in the UK on BBC and hosted by Stephen Fry)

A quick Google found me the webpage that was probably used to generate the statistics:

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8289

Re:Cost of imprisonment isn't worth it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Five years for what you did. The rest because you tried to run.

Re:Cost of imprisonment isn't worth it.

[Anonymous Coward]

20 years would be a ridiculous sentence!

People who murder, rape, and countless other sick misdeeds get far less. Less than 10 years in most cases, based on what I see in the newspaper.

Re:Cost of imprisonment isn't worth it.

[Anonymous Coward]

what if it was the password to your bank account,credit card, medical records?

Re:Cost of imprisonment isn't worth it.

[Anonymous Coward]

I do. He did it with the clear intent to affect the outcome of a US Presidential election as a dweeb of the Democratic party.

There is virtually no difference in what he did and what the Republican dweebs did that became Watergate. Nixon resigned not because he was involved, but because the obstruction part afterwords.

Re:Cost of imprisonment isn't worth it.

[Anonymous Coward]

He didn't guess any passwords. He just re-set Palin's password. He used publicly available facts (high school she graduated from and city where she met her spouse) to answer the "secret questions" used to permit you to re-set your Yahoo Mail password. The relevant messages in her inbox were questions she sent to her staff to inquire as to whether or not Yahoo email was subject to subpoena by a court, and advised her staff to not use their Blackberry devices (which are subject to subpoena) for correspondence. She foolishly thought that Yahoo email was "safer" to use for underhanded political dealings than the encrypted messages sent over the Blackberry.

You missed something

[random coward]

An Alaska judge has sided with former Gov. Sarah Palin in a lawsuit over e-mail, finding that state law doesn't forbid the use of private e-mail accounts to conduct state business.


Just because you want it to be illegal doesn't make it illegal; i.e. laws have to be passed by legislature first.

Re:You missed something

[Anonymous Coward]

An Alaska judge has sided with former Gov. Sarah Palin in a lawsuit over e-mail, finding that state law doesn't forbid the use of private e-mail accounts to conduct state business.

Just because you want it to be illegal doesn't make it illegal; i.e. laws have to be passed by legislature first.

Jesus Christ. Not only is that a BS decision to save Palin's butt, but it just set precedence.

I hate this country sometimes.

No good!

[Anonymous Coward]

Then there would be two of her running around!

Re:Two Stupid People

[Anonymous Coward]

The only *insecure* way of filling those fields is to fill in honest answers. The only secure way is to create random phrases, write them down and stick them by your computer. Then at least your security == physical security. Much better than having an honest answer to "What is the color of your first car??".

Even safer, is to use a safe to store the passwords.

Safest: safety deposit box :)

Re:Two Stupid People

[Protoslo]

To be fair, I'm sure Obama has never posted to his "own" Twitter page (I remember a published statement to that effect about his Facebook account, at least). It is actually some minor staffer who is the guilty party here: Obama is maybe only transitively guilty for trusting Rahm Emmanuel, who trusted the staffer (or the staffer's immediate boss). That stands in contrast to Sarah Palin's personal email account and the personal Twitter accounts of the celebrities involved in the other incident, the obvious passwords of which reflect much more directly on the intelligence (or lack thereof) of the account owners.

This is why I never seriously answer password reminder questions. Unfortunately there seem to be two uses: the first, where it is used in lieu of a valid email address to reset a password, and the second, where (mostly) banks decide that asking for what amounts to two passwords constitutes "two factor" authentication. Both methods have little upside (for the user) if the questions are answered with personal information.

They don't know what deadlock means

[200_success]

From the article:

A sentencing date will not be set until prosecutors decide whether they will retry kernel on the deadlocked charge, according to this report.

You can't retry a deadlocked kernel. The only way out is a hard reset.

Re:They don't know what deadlock means

[Zak3056]

I hear his lawyer is going to try the Magic SysReq defense, developed some years ago by Johnny Cochran.

Re:They don't know what deadlock means

[noidentity]

This, my friends, is why I'm not a Kernell hacker... too dangerous.

lazy posters now adays can't even google

[Anonymous Coward]

What is it with people who post this stuff and can't be arsed to find out on their own? Its not even news anymore that the judge in alaska found in palin's favor 3 months ago! But that doesn't fit the narrative because palin is an EEEVVILL STOOPID CONSERVATIVE. All the media and established politicians are scared to death of her and tried to pin whatever they can on her. It was front page news when the lawsuit over her using yahoo email was filed, she wins and its back news and all the liberal slashdotters "*waits for replies*" because they're only listening to the talking points from the drive by media.

/end rant
/end troll.

Re:Double Standard

[coaxial]

You need a citation? How about, the purloined emails themselves.

And yes, sometimes they decided to stay within the law, and other times they didn't. Frankly, they should have always kept a big bold line between the work and personal.

Re:Two Stupid People

[CAIMLAS]

Did he figure out the name of Obama's first pet, where he went to school, his first job, his mother's maiden name, or what? All of those things have got to be fairly easy to work out.

You'd think so, given the vetting which is supposed to go into establishing a person's qualifications for the Office of the President but there's been substantial research into each of those things, and each of them bring up non-trivial questions of the veracity of so-called "established fact". Kinda odd considering the public scrutiny - in the media, government, and otherwise - of every other President to date.

Re:Two Stupid People

[CAIMLAS]

If you're President Obama? Probably. Nobody would ever be able to figure it out, after all.

Re:Two Stupid People

[retchdog]

And if you put something in that's neither an honest answer nor a random phrase: the universe explodes.

It's always a good day when privacy protections

[davide marney]

are upheld in Court. Personal email really IS private, and people should be held accountable if they cross the line. Jail time sounds a bit extreme, given the youthful age of the accused, but I'm glad the legal precedents are being followed correctly.

Re:It's always a good day when privacy protections

[KahabutDieDrake]

You can't talk like that here. Rational, intelligent discourse isn't allowed on the internet. Turn in your /. UID and your geek card at the nearest ISP.

In all seriousness, I agree. It's great to see personal communications being held as personal. It's right in line with my understanding of the founders intent. However, I'd also like to see the laws changed so that government personnel can't hide behind private mail for official "off the record" business.

Re:It's always a good day when privacy protections

[RazorSharp]

Yes, but would the prosecutors and law enforcement done anything if it was YOUR e-mail? I doubt it.

Justice tends to be biased in favor of those with money and power. Just look at Ben Roethlesburger. He raped a girl and they didn't even take it to court.

Re:It's always a good day when privacy protections

[dbcad7]

It seems rational.. but everything leading up to this rationality is not.. If the same thing happened to any of about 308,990,000 of the 309,000,000 people in the US absolutely nothing anywhere near this result would occur.. That there is such a result is an insult.. and sounds more like people behind the scenes trying to give worth, to a worthless person.. I am absolutely astounded that people see anything of value or promise in her.. my god, I could find a stripper in Las Vegas that would make a better candidate for ANY office than her.. in fact I could find several dozen.. In fact I think I'll try doing that..

Re:It's always a good day when privacy protections

[Anonymous Coward]

It is more than just breaking into private email. This person (who was the son of a Democrat politician) was actually trying to affect the outcome of an election. He should get the 20 years.

Re:It's always a good day when privacy protections

[Anonymous Coward]

Except that if the "person" crossing the line is a corporation then it's not a crime.

Re:Two Stupid People

[Anonymous Coward]

Honestly! I always put in "password" when they ask for it.

Re:Two Stupid People

[ravenshrike]

Except it wasn't the 'obvious password' which did them in, it was the lame drop-box security questions. Make it so all security questions are chosen when the account is created, and not selected from some stupid list, and your problem is solved.

Alaskan judge disagrees with you

[SuperKendall]

An Alaska judge has sided with former Gov. Sarah Palin in a lawsuit over e-mail, finding that state law doesn't forbid the use of private e-mail accounts to conduct state business.

By the way, that was from back in January. Didn't your copt of Palin Haters Weekly include that news? Gee, I wonder why not?

Re:Alaskan judge disagrees with you

[Anonymous Coward]

I didn't realize there were so many Palin fanbois on Slashdot. Interesting. I wonder how that plays into the whole ubuntu vs mac fanboi club?

Re:Alaskan judge disagrees with you

[Anonymous Coward]

Personally I am greatly pleased that contributors to this site continue to back unfashionable political underdogs. Not everybody here is an Obama zombie. "Change.... change.... change...."

Re:Two Stupid People

[Anonymous Coward]

"About as stupid as Obama?"

Grow up.

Re:Two Stupid People

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

I don't think anyone thinks I really had a pet Vulcan, Dragon or a Dalek as a kid as my first pet.

Oh wait I need to change a bunch of secret questions now.

The basics?

[rduke15]

Somehow, I missed the original story. Must have been on travels at the time. Would someone help me with these basic questions? (I can't help being interested in the trivia. I love Sarah Palin stories. US politics would be so dull without her...)

- How did he hack the account? Guess the password? Do we know what the password was?

- Were funny email bits published on the net? Are they still available somewhere?

- How did the guy actually get caught?

Re:The basics?

[neurovish]

Somehow, I missed the original story. Must have been on travels at the time. Would someone help me with these basic questions? (I can't help being interested in the trivia. I love Sarah Palin stories. US politics would be so dull without her...)

- How did he hack the account? Guess the password? Do we know what the password was?

- Were funny email bits published on the net? Are they still available somewhere?

- How did the guy actually get caught?

-Guessed the password (or the password reset questions, forget which)
-Posted screenshots of the inbox, I do not recall any funny bits
-Posted to 4chan.

...that's how I recall it happening at least, ymmv

Re:The basics?

[Anonymous Coward]

- How did the guy actually get caught?

-Posted screenshots of the inbox, I do not recall any funny bits

I believe one of the funny bits contributed somewhat to how he got caught. IIRC one of his screenshots exposed a portion of the IP or name of the anonymizing proxy he used.

Also he was tentatively identified pretty quickly due to his user name. IIRC I believe some people, possible channers, found a matching user name on a profile at a chess site/board with personally identifying details. This was done for the "lulz" as I think the young'uns call it nowadays.

Re:The basics?

[IICV]

He guessed the reset question. It was something along the lines of "Where did you meet your husband?". He did a bit of Internet stalking, found an interview where she'd given a general area, and made a couple of educated guesses.

This is why there should only be another password behind your password reset question (much like Bruce Perens' beard).

Re:Two Stupid People

[notthepainter]

I just use password strength answer and I keep a file of them. I had a great conversation with an online bank. Security had detected a pattern that was unusual and called me. They asked me what high school I went to. I told them UMc9vdX0QLOH (not really, but you get the idea.)

The guy was flabbergasted.

I told him that although I appreciated their security, I didn't trust them, say, to not sell a used laptop on ebay.

He thought it was a great idea.

Of course if I loose my file, I'm screwed, but that's what backups are for.

Re:Two Stupid People

[Labcoat Samurai]

My bank now requires me to answer a security question *and* input my password in order to log in. And it picks a random one of my security questions (of which I was required to have 5 or so), which means I have to remember 6 distinct passwords for my bank. Shoot me.

Re:Two Stupid People

[dangitman]

"A Frenchman who police say hacked Twitter accounts belonging to US President Barack Obama and celebrities could face jail."

That seems somewhat redundant. Shouldn't all Frenchmen be in jail, regardless of whatever hacking they've done?

Re:Two Stupid People

[badboy_tw2002]

The big deal with the Obama case is that the question was "Where were you born?" and Obama filled it in honestly. They're trying to cover it up! This is all part of the conspiracy, man.

worldwide rummage?

[Anonymous Coward]

What's a "worldwide rummage" when it's at home??

Re:Two Stupid People

[BlueStrat]

There are two stupid people at the heart of this story, David Kernell and Sarah Palin.

Huh? How was Palin stupid in the context of this incident? Was she stupid to use email, as she should have known the extremists on the Left would hack it? Or just stupid because she disagrees with your views?

Apparently, Palin must not have used that account in any way that seriously violated any ethics rules and/or laws in any meaningful way or she would have been tarred, feathered, pilloried, and publicly horse-whipped on the Senate and/or House floors before being jailed by those who were (and still are) out to personally destroy the woman.

If there had been anything that could have even remotely made even the most shaky, thin case against Palin in the emails, you don't think it would have been the subject of a special Congressional committee and/or special prosecutor? You don't think that was *exactly* the intent behind the account cracking?

I don't care about "R" or "D", as both have been for larger government & larger national debt, but this was a really sleazy dirty trick and those behind anything like it, regardless of party/ideology, should be aggressively prosecuted and sentenced severely if found guilty.

Strat

Re:Two Stupid People

[spun]

I just use password strength answer and I keep a file of them. I had a great conversation with an online bank. Security had detected a pattern that was unusual and called me. They asked me what high school I went to. I told them UMc9vdX0QLOH (not really, but you get the idea.)

The guy was flabbergasted.

I told him that although I appreciated their security, I didn't trust them, say, to not sell a used laptop on ebay.

He thought it was a great idea.

Of course if I loose my file, I'm screwed, but that's what backups are for.

If you loose your file, you can just tighten it back up again with a bit-wrench.

Re:Double Standard

[RightSaidFred99]

Whoosh. You did not cite anything indicating her use of personal mail for state business was illegal.

Re:Double Standard

[Archangel Michael]

http://www.juneauempire.com/stories/012510/sta_554316966.shtml

Citation you gave doesn't prove a crime. The citation I give explicitly says it wasn't a crime.

Care to try again?

Re:Two Stupid People

[socz]

This is one of the things I try to get across to so many people, but most just don't realize what a security threat their reminders are. I generally tell everyone "unless you have to put your credit card in, never use your real name." Anymore usually confuses them and they start defending their actions.

Avoiding names and dates etc will keep the majority of people out of your things. Of course, someone who has experience and knowledge of gaining access to unauthorized systems will of course still be able to do so, but the random kid won't be able to.

Re:Two Stupid People

[Anonymous Coward]

There are two stupid people at the heart of this story, David Kernell and Sarah Palin. ...

I concur. I'm not a Sarah Palin hater but what kind of security question is "Where did you meet your husband?"? I don't advocate Kernell's actions, but c'mon, Sarah deserved to get hacked with that lame security...

Re:Two Stupid People

[socz]

Even safer, is to use a safe to store the passwords.

Safest: safety deposit box :)

not so much...

Many years ago, a friend of mine worked in a bank and told me that they were actually cataloging all items in safety deposit boxs! Having worked at a bank and been blown away but so many lapses of security issues, this didn't surprise me. He gleefully went over various items they encountered - including womens underwear! Mostly papers, not as much jewelry one would expect and some cash.

So, if you really want to be safe, encrypt a file on a storage medium that requires a password and that'll only work on your host at home? Nah I'll just carry my ATM PIN on the back of the card! (That way I can find it in case I forget it!)

ASCII or Hash

[dunc78]

I believe a lot of those are insensitive to case, so does that mean that are stored as text and not as a hash (is hash the right word)? If so, would typing your password in those fields make your password more vulnerable?

Re:ASCII or Hash

[Labcoat Samurai]

Hmmm, don't know. Moot point now since most places seem to figure it out if you try it. The fact that they do notice seems to suggest that they perform a hash on your security question...

Which brings up an interesting idea. If that's how they detect that your security answer is the same as your password, reverse the case of all the letters and you have an easy to remember permutation of your password that should pass a hash check

Re:ASCII or Hash

[Hatta]

You can be case insensitive without storing in plain text. Just convert everything to one case before you hash it.

Re:ASCII or Hash

[Agarax]

I believe a lot of those are insensitive to case, so does that mean that are stored as text and not as a hash (is hash the right word)? If so, would typing your password in those fields make your password more vulnerable?

You are absolutely correct.

A hash, by definition, is a one way mathematical algorithm that can take any amount of data and convert it to a fixed size string. Unless the algorithm has been broken, looking at the hash can not tell you what the input text was. Breaking a password database involves running a dictionary file through the hash and whatever salt accompanied the program. This is why passwords normally are required to be over a certain length and include numbers and special characters.

HOWEVER, the security question answers are probably encrypted (a two way function) in the database, but any encryption is only as secure as how safe you keep your keys.

So the real question is "How secure are the keys that decrypt the answers to your password reset questions?"

Double Standards?

[wisnoskij]

While I think he should be punished, online account hacking happens all the time (probably hundreds or thousands of times per day).
And even with moderately higher profile hacking, not one normally gets charged.

Actually...

[DaveAtFraud]

It is still considered theft if someone enters my house and takes some of my belongings even if I leave my door is unlocked. Ditto for leaving the keys in my car and someone takes it or leaving the car running unattended while I go into a store or something.

For some reason a lot of /. people seem to think that not securing your property suddenly makes it fair game for anyone who wants to take it. The crime occurs when someone takes something that doesn't belong to them regardless of how well or how poorly it is secured.

Personally, I lock my doors, don't leave my keys in my car, set up a RADIUS server for my wireless authentication, etc. I'd rather my stuff not get stolen or my network get broken into in the first place. There was a time when people respected other people's privacy and property. That doesn't seem to happen any more.

Cheers,
Dave

Re:Actually...

[evilviper]

For some reason a lot of /. people seem to think that not securing your property suddenly makes it fair game for anyone who wants to take it. The crime occurs when someone takes something that doesn't belong to them regardless of how well or how poorly it is secured.

I WOULD like to see the laws changed so that punishment is relative to the difficulty of the crime, rather than the value of the object. A professional criminal with the tools to disarm the alarm, pick the door locks, etc., shouldn't be equivalent to some stupid kid who saw a car with the keys in the ignition and decided to go on a drunken joy ride in the middle of nowhere...

Yeah, if you leave your jewelry box on the street, and someone steals it, you deserved it...

Re:Actually...

[DaveAtFraud]

Only if the punishment for the crime becomes commensurate with the value of the object. Of course, I'd use the "old west" measure that stealing a horse is a hanging offense and go from there. That would make stealing a car and anything more valuable capital offenses.

BTW, when I find someone's valuables (e.g., a jewelry box in the middle of the street), I try to find the owner and return the property. Call me old fashioned.

Cheers,
Dave

Re:Actually...

[evilviper]

Only if the punishment for the crime becomes commensurate with the value of the object

It already is. My suggestion was to change that... How you think you can add a contradictory conditional to that is beyond me.

Of course, I'd use the "old west" measure that stealing a horse is a hanging offense and go from there. That would make stealing a car and anything more valuable capital offenses.

Horses were more valuable then than cars are today...

But that aside, I'd be happy to let you live in your little slice of heaven, where every kid going on a joy ride gets executed, and every shoplifter takes out 20 innocent bystanders rather than give themselves up, due to the draconian punishment...

It's only in the right-wind fantasy world that, when the punishment is harsh enough, crimes stop being committed. The opposite is actually quite true. And I'd be damn sure you've made plenty of mistakes in your life, which you've conveniently forgotten about... Sure, YOU deserved a light punishment, but everyone else should be locked-up forever!

Re:Actually...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's only in the right-wind fantasy world that, when the punishment is harsh enough, crimes stop being committed. The opposite is actually quite true. And I'd be damn sure you've made plenty of mistakes in your life, which you've conveniently forgotten about... Sure, YOU deserved a light punishment, but everyone else should be locked-up forever!

Sounds good. Let's implement it. I look forward to not having to deal with rates of recidivism, because nobody gets out.

Re:Actually...

[Thing 1]

[...] and every shoplifter takes out 20 innocent bystanders rather than give themselves up, due to the draconian punishment...

In old England, the penalty for pickpocketing at one point was death.

This had the side effect that the crime changed from "pick the pocket and run" to "pick the pocket and MURDER", so that the thief could not be identified.

It's only in the right-wind fantasy world that, when the punishment is harsh enough, crimes stop being committed.

It would do well for politicians (of ANY wing, left, right, up, down, charm, strange, green, tea, etc) to remember this history, lest they be doomed to repeat it.

Re:Actually...

[HungryHobo]

Thing is there really should be some kind of "symbolic" security if you want to call it theft.
If I connect to your webserver and try to guess the password, I have no problem with that being illegal no matter how easy the password.
If I connect to your webserver and just download some documents which are up and available freely to the world that shouldn't be illegal even if you didn't *mean* to post them up.

There was a story a while back about some AU reporter who found documents up and available to the world on a government site with no authentication and they called it hacking because they hadn't intended him to have access.

Information is inherently different to physical things.
If I walk into a classroom and see something interesting left written on the board I shouldn't be a thief for reading it even if the person who wrote it meant to delete it.
If I pick the lock on the writers office and go through their files that's a different matter.

If I crack your wep key and break into your network that should absolutley be a crime.
If on the other hand I simply connect to your open unsecured network that shouldn't be a crime.

When it comes to information :
Failure to secure information in any way shape form should absolutely make accessing it legal since you're effectively publishing it.
Failure to secure information *effectively* is a different matter, if you circumvent even weak protections you know dammn well you're doing it.

Picking the lock on a shop door and going in vs walking in the open door of a shop.

Re:Two Stupid People

[CharlyFoxtrot]

Except it wasn't the 'obvious password' which did them in, it was the lame drop-box security questions. Make it so all security questions are chosen when the account is created, and not selected from some stupid list, and your problem is solved.

Please answer your security question: "What country were you born in ?"
> "Kenya"

*ducks*

Answers

[Anonymous Coward]

First off, it should be known that the answers (and god help us if the jury wasn't told this) to Sarah Palin's secret questions were publicly search-able on Google. Yes, all he did was google the questions and he found the answers. He didn't break in to anything. Maybe Sarah should have had to take a test to be able to get online.

Re:Answers

[east coast]

He didn't break in to anything.

This sounds like the defense of "No, your honor, she didn't say no. By that time she was already passed out."

You know, it's so bullshit that people have to defend themselves against any little asshat who thinks he has the right to do something simply because he can. I know it's a fact of modern society (that people are total assholes, that is) but it doesn't excuse the person who violated the rights of another in any way.

If you're going to be a member of our civilization, you're going to live by our collective rules. Don't like that? You have two choices: try to bend them, pray you don't get caught and accept your punishment if you get caught or get the fuck out. Seems pretty simple to me.

Re:Two Stupid People

[CharlyFoxtrot]

If there had been anything that could have even remotely made even the most shaky, thin case against Palin in the emails, you don't think it would have been the subject of a special Congressional committee and/or special prosecutor? You don't think that was *exactly* the intent behind the account cracking?

Actually, I was on ebaumsworld when the account was "hacked" and the first screenshots were posted and I can assure you it was done for the lulz and not some some diabolical political purpose.

Re:Two Stupid People

[Sibko]

Was she stupid to use email, as she should have known the extremists on the Left would hack it?

Umm... what?
This guy wasn't an extremist anything, I was there reading the thread when he posted it, he mentioned in his thread that there wasn't anything interesting in it. [Apparently this somehow gets construed as him being an evil liberal socialist hippie extremist out to overthrow the government...] Then some whiteknight went and changed the password so that nobody could access the account.

The dude was just doing what any average person in his position would be doing if they got to look at Obama's emails or Dick Cheney's emails or Bush's emails.

As a Canadian, I've got to say, this Republican vs Democrat stuff is really really getting out of hand. Are you people children or adults, FFS.

Re:Two Stupid People

[Labcoat Samurai]

So, I guess if you wanted to screw with them, you could forge some fake documents that implicate you or, perhaps better, someone important, in a crime and keep them in a safety deposit box. Hell, you could probably pull off some pretty nifty grifts with that as the hook, because the guy is surely going to assume that you didn't *intend* for it to be seen :)

And of course the law is stupid

[Snaller]

This is just for vengeance, not for making a better society - but then such is the legal system of US - hence a greater and greater percentage of the population go to jail. In a hundred years the entire country will have locked itself up.

Re:And of course the law is stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

This is just for vengeance, not for making a better society - but then such is the legal system of US - hence a greater and greater percentage of the population go to jail. In a hundred years the entire country will have locked itself up.

Unlike France having the same type of law http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8586269.stm >, but I guess if you're not the US, you can have the same type of "vengeful" laws and it isn't an issu.e

Re:Two Stupid People

[GameMaster]

Personally, I don't see the idea of either of them having their accounts hacked as a sign of stupidity. We all know that sites like that aren't 100% secure (not that any system ever is and to say nothing of the fact that Obama, almost certainly, has never, personally, handled the management of his twitter account) and that both of them are prime targets to be hacked by hackers who aren't bright enough to think about how stupid it is to hack the e-mail account of someone protected by the FBI/Secret Service/NSA/CIA/etc. just "4 t3h lulz". For that reason, I completely agree with suggesting that David Kernell is a moron. Sarah Paling, on the other hand, has more than ample evidence compiled against her to condemn her as a complete imbecile long before the issue of having her e-mail account hacked comes into the picture.

Re:Two Stupid People

[tehIvyn]

As popular as it is to bash Palin, this isn't about Slashdots users estimate of her acumen, but about David Kernell breaking the law. Seems pretty cut and dry to me.

Re:Two Stupid People

[GameMaster]

At this point, with the vast majority of people being hacked by someone half a world away, I think you might be better of forgoing password remonders all-together (just type a long string of letters, numbers, and symbols into the answer line and forget about it) and just keeping a pen-and-paper list of sites you are registered with along with you username/password). Unless you have reason to think someone you live with might care enough to mess with you (you live in a dorm/apartment with asshole roommates; you have an older/younger sibling you don't get along with; you have a paranoid/jealous significant other; etc.) you should be fine just keeping it in a drawer somewhere.

Re:Two Stupid People

[Anonymous Coward]

Did he figure out the name of Obama's first pet, where he went to school, his first job, his mother's maiden name, or what? All of those things have got to be fairly easy to work out.

...They might have a harder time with Obama's place of birth.

Re:Two Stupid People

[socz]

It's very surprising to a lot of us how many people come through the IT dept with laptops for 'repairs' (they f'd them up) and have plain text files with user names and passwords for various things! Mind blowing to me.

But the real question is: how paranoid do you want and have to be?

I would ~LOVE~ to tell everyone exactly what I would do, but then that would negate it's usefulness as I get attacked all the time lol. Maybe on my next iteration of security improvements I'll disclose what I do.

Re:Two Stupid People

[GameMaster]

It's easy enough to deal with that. Read their policies before hand. If their policy doesn't, explicitly, state that they will inventory the safe deposit box (and, especially, if their policy clearly states that they won't) then just buy a separate box just small enough to fit in the safe deposit box. Then, purchase a roll of tamper-proof stickers and use them to seal the box every time you're done messing with the contents of the box. If you ever go to check the box and find that the seal has been tampered with, raise bloody murder with the bank management, corporate, Better Business Bureau, and the state's attorney's general office.

Re:Two Stupid People

[Anonymous Coward]

You have the Bloc Québécois and you're lecturing us on political parties getting out of hand???

Re:Two Stupid People

[BlueStrat]

If there had been anything that could have even remotely made even the most shaky, thin case against Palin in the emails, you don't think it would have been the subject of a special Congressional committee and/or special prosecutor? You don't think that was *exactly* the intent behind the account cracking?

Actually, I was on ebaumsworld when the account was "hacked" and the first screenshots were posted and I can assure you it was done for the lulz [encycloped...matica.com] and not some some diabolical political purpose.

Sure, and I'm certain that if the son/daughter of a Republican politician had cracked Obama's or Hillary's email accounts that all those claiming the Palin email crack was the equivalent of a random prank would feel the same.

If it were for laughs, why did he not try cracking email accounts of Hillary or Obama and instead chose Palin? Just because the politically-motivated cracker was incompetent at exploiting the data politically or even at hiding his tracks doesn't affect the fact that Palin was a target because she was (and remains) a threat to the Progressive social & political agenda.

Strat

Re:Two Stupid People

[Toonol]

Grow up.

What? Why the response? Is Obama sacrosanct?

Re:Two Stupid People

[Toonol]

Then some whiteknight went and changed the password so that nobody could access the account.

Damn, I hate this attitude. No, it wasn't a whiteknight. It was simply a better person than you.

Re:Two Stupid People

[GameMaster]

Her stupidity has nothing to do with the e-mail issue any more than it has to do with her political positions. I may disagree with most Republican positions, but I can acknowledge that there are some very smart people on their side (I may think some of those people are evil, but that doesn't make them less intelligent). There's a famous quote that I've heard attributed to many famous, historical, Americans including Abraham Lincoln and Mark Twain, it goes something like "it is better to remain seated and be thought a fool than to stand up and remove all doubt". Sarah Palin has made a point of standing up and removing all doubt numerous times since she was chosen as McCain's running mate. Whether it is the interview where she, clearly, had no clue about any of the foreign policy topics she was asked about; her attempt to use the fact that you can see part of Russia from part of Alaska (yes, I know the difference between what she really said and the Tina Fey quote, the ironic part about the two is that they aren't significantly different from each other when it comes to how idiotic they are but only one was intended as comedy).as proof that she has experience with international politics; or any one of the many, many, other examples of her saying things that, clearly, show her ignorance, I believe that she has, more than, earned her position among the ranks of the "stupid people".

Re:Two Stupid People

[gknoy]

You could have a semi-secure way of doing it by answering from the perspective of someone else. If all your security questions are answered as if you were Monty Hall, who would guess THAT?

Re:Two Stupid People

[dbIII]

Did you notice that she resigned as Governor to avoid scandals?
I'm amazed that people still hold her up as a good example when there are a lot of more honest Republicans out there.
You should have noticed now that there are a lot of people that get away with a variety of crimes because of the extra effort required to convict, for instance (outside politics but within influence) Madden got away with a lot until it was very easy to drag him into court. Who is going to destroy their career to drag Palin into court on some petty charge of abusing procedure when they know they are going to be opposed by every Republican and vilified in the press? Nobody is going to do that so she got away with it. Even if she was caught stealing she would get away with it. It's only when someone in politics gets caught stealing to use the money for an immoral purpose that there is enough outrage for someone to bring charges without destroying their career.

Re:Two Stupid People

[GameMaster]

The nice thing about keeping a pen-and-paper copy of all your passwords is that it doesn't matter if you tell people about it online. Even in the, unlikely, event that someone who tries to hack your account happens to live in the same geographic region as you, it's unlikely that they'd be willing to escalate their criminal activity from hacking accounts to full-blown breaking-and-entering (especially if they're just hacking e-mail accounts to grief random stranger on the internet). If they're trying to make money doing identity theft, then they'll just move on to other low hanging fruit that's easier to hack.

Re:Two Stupid People

[fyoder]

As a Canadian, I've got to say, this Republican vs Democrat stuff is really really getting out of hand. Are you people children or adults, FFS.

Can this Onion Ring get more fans than Stephen Harper?

Stephen Harper is a doo-doo head.

Re:Two Stupid People

[Anonymous Coward]

"The dude was just doing what any average person in his position would be doing if they got to look at Obama's emails or Dick Cheney's emails or Bush's emails. "

What the hell kind of world do you live in where it is socially acceptable to just paw through other people's private email accounts for the lulz? What if you find communication between a lawyer about criminal cases, about taxes? What about communication with a doctor about a medical condition? What about communication with members of the clergy about person issues?

The motivation behind the attack does not change the fact that there WAS an unauthorized security breach.

That no sensitive data was found does not eliminate the legal consequences of that illegal act.

Re:Two Stupid People

[Hatta]

If there had been anything that could have even remotely made even the most shaky, thin case against Palin in the emails, you don't think it would have been the subject of a special Congressional committee and/or special prosecutor?

No. No I don't. When there has not been a single indictment for any of the well documented crimes of the Bush administration, I don't trust the justice system to prosecute any government official no matter how obvious their crimes. Was Sarah Palin absolved because she was not guilty, or because she was well connected and powerful? Given what I know about the justice system, the latter seems more likely.

Palin the walking security threat

[Anonymous Coward]

While the focus here seems to be the cracker, what's sadly ignored is the fact she shouldn't have been USING the account in the first place.

No punishment for corrupt officials, instead shine the focus on the cracker.

There wouldn't be emails in the first place if Palin didn't BREAK THE LAW!

Come on...

Re:Two Stupid People

[Agarax]

Of course if I loose my file, I'm screwed, but that's what backups are for.

Store them all in a TrueCrypt volume and email it to yourself in a public email periodically. That way you only have to memorize one strong password, and not worry about losing it.

And even if someone gets into your email, good luck cracking a AES-Twofish-Serpent volume with a 30 character password.

Re:Two Stupid People

[socz]

If they're trying to make money doing identity theft, then they'll just move on to other low hanging fruit that's easier to hack.

Like dumpster diving! A co-worker recently told me he had an acquaintance that confessed to him one day that's what his profession was. And then used found information to scam money lol.

I think that's what it really comes down to, not to have the so called 'common sense' because it's not that common after all, but just make it somewhat more difficult for the opportunist to take advantage.

As for the person referring to the rape victims, are you for real? Who can compare rape (physical, violent, life-changing) to guessing what my dogs name is, what my mom's maiden name is and what color I like.

Re:Two Stupid People

[notthepainter]

But my password is 12345

Re:Two Stupid People

[CharlyFoxtrot]

If it were for laughs, why did he not try cracking email accounts of Hillary or Obama and instead chose Palin?

Palin was already the butt of jokes, she was the most in the public eye and she's a MILF. To put it bluntly she's more interesting than either Obama or Hillary.

Palin was a target because she was (and remains) a threat to the Progressive social & political agenda.

I'm a european so take this with appropriate quantities of salt but from where I'm standing Palin, Beck, the teabaggers, et al seem more of a threat to the internal cohesion of the Republican party than to the "progressive agenda" (whatever that means.)

Re:Two Stupid People

[Anonymous Coward]

Did he figure out the name of Obama's first pet, where he went to school, his first job, his mother's maiden name, or what? All of those things have got to be fairly easy to work out.

You mean, people put honest answers in those fields??? [boggles]

Hey, even Obama tells the truth sometimes.

Gitmo closed yet?

Don't-ask-don't-tell repealed yet?

Troops out of Iraq yet?

Re:Two Stupid People

[Anonymous Coward]

Who is going to destroy their career to drag Palin into court on some petty charge of abusing procedure when they know they are going to be opposed by every Republican and vilified in the press?

Well according to Sarah Palin's attorney there are at least 26 people doing so. Or perhaps it is a lesser number trying repeatedly. It sort of looks like people playing a game of ethics Battleship with Sarah starring in the role of battleship, and they're failing miserably. In other words they're not "Nailin' Paylin".

If only...

[CosaNostra Pizza Inc]

If only someone would hack her Facebook account too. She's so annoying and she just won't go away.

Re:Two Stupid People

[Thinboy00]

You could have a semi-secure way of doing it by answering from the perspective of someone else. If all your security questions are answered as if you were Monty Hall, who would guess THAT?

*Breaks into gknoy's email w/ Monty Hall info*

Re:Two Stupid People

[Thinboy00]

If it were for laughs, why did he not try cracking email accounts of Hillary or Obama and instead chose Palin?

What bizarre alternate universe did you come from?

Just because the politically-motivated cracker was incompetent at exploiting the data politically or even at hiding his tracks doesn't affect the fact that Palin was a target because she was (and remains) a threat to the Progressive social & political agenda.

Palin is/was a threat to anyone? Really?

Re:Two Stupid People

[Thinboy00]

Who is going to destroy their career to drag Palin into court on some petty charge of abusing procedure when they know they are going to be [...] vilified in the press?

Is this the same press that Bill O'Reilly is continually "calling out" for being too "liberal"?

New Godwin=Limbaugh

[WED Fan]

I'm starting to think Rush is going to be the new Godwin law.

Re:Two Stupid People

[kaychoro]

... I didn't think it was possible... an HONEST politician?

Re:Two Stupid People

[BlueStrat]

I'm a european so take this with appropriate quantities of salt but from where I'm standing Palin, Beck, the teabaggers, et al seem more of a threat to the internal cohesion of the Republican party than to the "progressive agenda" (whatever that means.)

The Republican Party and the Democratic Party have both been infiltrated by Progressives. Examples of Republican Progressives include (but aren't limited to) Lindsey Graham(sp?) and John McCain.

The political struggles in Europe have ranged mainly between royalty and a parliamentary body, Socialism, Fascism, and Communism with most European governments being some compromise between them. Where America has differed fundamentally is that the debate was changed from what form, to *how much* government there should be. The Founders believed that the only way to contain government expansion and thus prevent loss of individual freedom was to restrict government. They (rightly, IMHO) viewed all government as a necessary evil that should be kept at the very minimums of size and power possible while still performing the minimal duties it must.

This is the struggle America faces once again. Those that want to sacrifice our individual freedoms in exchange for power through cradle-to-grave entitlements and thus government involvement & control in every facet of life, versus those that do not wish to sacrifice their freedoms for an intrusive nanny-state.

Strat

Rehberg v. Paulk

[HycoWhit]

Actually in Rehberg v. Paulk, the Eleventh Circuit held that sending “emails to third parties constitute[s] a voluntary relinquishment of the right to privacy in that information.” In this case, the investigators subpoenaed the emails directly from the Internet Service Provider (ISP) through which Rehberg transmitted his messages. The Court held that he did not have a valid expectation of privacy in the email information, so he failed to state a Fourth Amendment violation.

Here is a link to the brief: http://www.georgiafederalcriminallawyerblog.com/Rehberg.pdf

Plus how can covering up a misdemeanor be a felony? I could understand the obstruction being a felony if he hurt or killed someone to cover up the crime. But non-violent resisting arrest and formatting your personal hard drive are hardly felonies. Guess I should read the case...

Re:Rehberg v. Paulk

[davide marney]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the issue with email privacy in Rehberg v. Paulk had to do with voluntary delivery of emails to a third party (in which case no expectation of privacy is called for.) That is not the case here, where the accused has admitted to hacking into Gov. Palin's account and making the emails public without her consent.

Re:Two Stupid People

[Entropius]

MILF

I prefer the hot-librarian-looking women to actually be literate. Kind of ruins the fantasy if they're not.

Re:Two Stupid People

[Anonymous Coward]

Mostly spoiled little rugfuckers.

Re:Two Stupid People

[gary_7vn]

And good luck finding it. Most of the time I can't find paper documents myself!

Re:Two Stupid People

[dbIII]

Talk to student politicians who haven't learnt how to lie properly yet and you'll hear some call one paper a "commie rag" and another call the same thing "fascist fishwrap". The true answer is the press goes after soft targets if there is a story in it. If you take on someone with a reputation you become a soft target.

Re:Two Stupid People

[h8sg8s]

Amen. And wasn't Kernell's dad a bigwig in the local Democratic party? Wonder if he was put up to it and hung out to dry afterwards. "No problem, if he's caught, they'll just let him go because he's a kid.." Going through other folk's emails is dirty business - I know, I had to do it as a sysadmin many moons ago and about barfed on what I found.

....Three Stupid People

[daemonenwind]

The perp here is the son of Mike Kernell, a long-serving Democrat in the Tennessee state legislature.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Kernell

Young David wasn't just looking around for any old account to break into, he was actively working on the account of a political opponent of his father's.

This also implies that David, despite claims that it was for "lulz", was almost certainly conducting a targeted search of her email. There would be no other reason for the son of a prominent Democrat to do what he did.

This is Watergate. The only difference is the desire of the American media to tar and feather those involved.

Small facts completely lost in the media rush..

[Anonymous Coward]

..to this story was that it was originally reported that the FBI was investigating Palin's use of yahoo mail for conducting governmental business. But hey, she got "hacked" and there was nothing there right? Why should we care about government officials using third-party email and with easy to recover password options rather than secure government-run communications?

see: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/09/AR2008090903044.html

Re:Two Stupid People

[jav1231]

"The dude was just doing what any average person in his position would be doing if they got to look at Obama's emails or Dick Cheney's emails or Bush's emails."

Except he didn't "got to look" at it. He HACKED it.

Re:Two Stupid People

[Anonymous Coward]

Look up what Kernell's Dad does for a living and get back to us...

Re:Two Stupid People

[notknown86]

There are two stupid people at the heart of this story, David Kernell and Sarah Palin.

Huh? How was Palin stupid in the context of this incident? Was she stupid to use email, as she should have known the extremists on the Left would hack it?

Yes!

Re:Two Stupid People

[Anonymous Coward]

If only the GP would have addressed that issue in the second paragraph or something.

Re:Two Stupid People

[CptNerd]

Yes. Yes He is. It is racist to suggest otherwise. Remember, dissent is no longer patriotic, paying as much in taxes as possible is, Republicans are fascists, and only the Federal Government cares about you.

Funny that, huh

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny that, huh. A judge lets a rich powerful person off by saying the law wasn't broken.

Re:Funny that, huh

[Anonymous Coward]

Your argument fails because your majesty Obama did the same with his Blackberry email during his compaign. If you want to hang Palin, you must also hang Obama. Hell, they even made an EXCEPTION FOR HIM to keep using his (private) blackberry despite it not being acceptable to record all communication (AS THE PRESIDENT, NOT CONDIDATE). So, you have absolutely no argument.

Re:Two Stupid People

[sonicmerlin]

Middle class pays less in federal taxes than it has in the last 50 years. The top 1% hold more of the national wealth than at any time since 1929, just before the Great Depression. And fascism is by definition an extreme right-wing political philosophy.

Re:Two Stupid People

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, the constant struggle between the progressives and regressives is so tiring!

Re:Two Stupid People

[ffreeloader]

That was funny.

BTW, I really like your signature. Most of what people want to claim to want as freedom today is actually license for licentiousness.

Re:Two Stupid People

[Anonymous Coward]

He was saying the "hacker" wasn't a left wing extremist. That doesn't make it any more socially or legally acceptable, and OP never implied such.

Re:Two Stupid People

[Anonymous Coward]

This guy wasn't an extremist anything

No, but he is the son of a Democrat politician. One has to be naive to think that he chose his target randomly.

The dude was just doing what any average person in his position would be doing if they got to look at Obama's emails or Dick Cheney's emails or Bush's emails.

Average people don't go looking for trouble by trying to read the email of a VP candidate.

As a Canadian, I've got to say, this Republican vs Democrat stuff is really really getting out of hand. Are you people children or adults

There is nothing childish about this kind of thing. Smearing and destroying political opponents can have tremendous political consequences.

There is no evidence that Kernell was recruited by the Democrat Party or the Obama campaign to do what he did, but Obama does have a track record of winning elections by eliminating opponents rather than winning at the ballot box and the Democrat Party has done some very underhanded things in the past. I am thinking in particular of the time it provided some labor union members with special equipment so that they could eavesdrop on cell phone calls made by Republicans back during the Clinton administration.

Re:Two Stupid People

[Anonymous Coward]

You missed the point. He made no comment on whether the initial act was right or wrong, he was talking about his behaviour being typical of a normal person doing so, as opposed to a politically motivated schemer or whatever.

Re:Two Stupid People

[Anonymous Coward]

Please note that the parent is, as evinced by his(?) posting history and homepage (or at least cached links to it), a right wing radical.

Re:Two Stupid People

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe because Obama and Hillary aren't nearly as hilarious as Caribou Barbie? Thus the possible amount of lulz would have been much lower.

Re:Two Stupid People

[Anonymous Coward]

Just because the politically-motivated cracker was incompetent at exploiting the data politically or even at hiding his tracks doesn't affect the fact that Palin was a target because she was (and remains) a threat to the Progressive social & political agenda.

You got to be kidding, right? Palin is the biggest joke since Dan Quayle.

Quit bringing up facts, they don't like facts

[Quila]

They believe Palin is an idiot. Period.

They believe what they have been fed according to their beliefs.

Any amount of factual evidence will not change this.

Especially when the evidence shows that they themselves are the idiots.

Re:Two Stupid People

[Coren22]

The funny thing is that this doesn't really make things any more secure, but the illusion of additional security is all the banks care about.

Re:Two Stupid People

[Anonymous Coward]

Obama does have a track record of winning elections by eliminating opponents rather than winning at the ballot box

Do you have a source source for this?

Re:Two Stupid People

[Frigo]

That's amazing. I've got the same combination on my luggage!

Re:Two Stupid People

[Frigo]

He isn't much of an orator without a teleprompter (or with a malfunctioning one).